


jamais vu

by everywordnotsaid



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen, gettin' the band back together, if the band is a bunch of international criminals who break into peoples dreams
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25995994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everywordnotsaid/pseuds/everywordnotsaid
Summary: That's the thing about running, Arthur is starting to realize. You can only run so far and so fast before it all catches up with you.
Relationships: Arthur & Dom Cobb
Comments: 23
Kudos: 20





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo, watched Inception again recently for the 10 year anniversary and remembered a. how much I loved it as a concept, and b. how much of a fat crush I had on Joseph Gordon-Levitt and his well tailored suits. This is the result.

Even in late May Kiev is cold, and Arthur pulls his jacket closer around him, glancing down at the address scribbled on the piece of paper in his hand. Three days ago an old co-worker, an Estonian architect Arthur had run two or three extractions with, had contacted Arthur on a number very few people knew saying he had something lined up. Something big. Arthur's never liked Kiev, the rules are blurry here and the mood is so depressingly Soviet, but Koppel refused to tell him more over the phone and Arthur's never been able to resist a mystery. And they have good coffee in Ukraine. So, despite the fact that he’s supposed to meet Eames in London in two days, Arthur had wrapped up his business in Hong Kong, booked the first ticket to Kiev he could find, and hopped on a plane. Whatever Koppel’s got, he hopes it’s worth it because the jet lag is terrible and the excellent espresso he bought on his way in to the city is barely enough to make up for it. 

Koppel always had been reliable though, kept his head down and did his job and did it well, and Arthur likes reliable in a co-worker. Likes someone you know what to expect from. _The exact opposite of Cobb_ he thinks, and then wonders where it came from. But it is true. As much as Arthur trusts Dom (and maybe that was stupidly sentimental of him) reliable had never been the sort of person he was. A genius yes, driven and passionate and talented. Kind even, to the people who knew him best, but never reliable. He had always let the job consume him, in a way Arthur could never afford too, because then who would there be to pick up the pieces?

No, Arthur had always been the dependable responsible one in the relationship, both professional and personal. Eames likes to say he lacks imagination, but Arthur prefers to think of it as overabundance of it. Predicting every possible way things could go wrong and planning for the eventuality that they would. Arthur who always trailed along behind Cobb to catch him when he fell, like an Icarus who flew too close to the sun. The thought is only a little bitter; Arthur has had a long time to come to terms with it. 

He frowns and shakes himself a little, not sure why he’s even thinking about Cobb. He’s retired, living a mundane comfortable life with what’s left of his family, and Arthur’s happy for him, truly. Anyways, they’ve barely talked in months, haven’t seen each other in longer. It’s probably better that way, Arthur lives in the space on the map where they used to draw dragons and sea serpents to warn people away, to say ‘here be monsters' and there's no room in that kind of living for friends with two kids and a mortgage and a regular day job, and there's no room in their lives for him. Arthur is content to fade from Cobb’s life like a bad dream, a memory of a world he doesn’t live in anymore; a ghost. He almost believes it when he tells himself that too. 

The hotel Koppel’s staying at is small and a run down, on a corner tucked in between a pierogi stall and a barbershop. The attendant behind the front desk looks bored, face buried in a glossy magazine with a skimpily dressed model splayed over the front cover. He barely glances up when Arthur walks in, keeps his eyes glued on the page in front him. Arthur coughs politely to get his attention, and when that doesn’t work raps his knuckles on the laminated countertop. Finally the attendant looks up, glaring a little like he’s put out somebody’s actually asking him to do his job. 

“I’m looking for Jüri Koppel.” Arthur says. “He should have checked in yesterday.”

The other man shrugs slowly, his eyes tracing Arthur’s expensive jacket, the patent leather messenger bag he has over his shoulder. 

“Never heard of him.”

He replies in heavily accented English. Arthur sighs, pulls out his wallet and slides a hundred euro note across the countertop. For a second the attendant scrutinizes it, then a pale hand darts out and the money disappears. 

“3rd floor,” he says, flicking his magazine open again. “Room 314.”

“Thanks for the excellent service. Enjoy the tip”

Arthur shoots acerbically over his shoulder as he puts his wallet back in his pocket and heads for the elevator. 

Room 314 is at the end of a long dingy hallway, and Arthur has to step over what looks suspiciously similar to an old bloodstain in the carpet on the way there. He really wishes Koppel had better taste in hotels, this one seems like it’s one lit cigarette butt away from burning to the ground. Arriving at the room he raps sharply on the door, leaning against the door jam as he waits. 

“This better be good Koppel,” he calls through the thin wall, checking his watch. “I’m supposed to be in London to meet with Eames on Monday.”

There’s no response though, and after a few seconds he knocks again, harder this time. The door swings in a little at his touch, unlocked. Immediately the hair on the back of Arthur’s neck stands on end, and his body tenses. Something is wrong. Very wrong. Glancing quickly down the hallway to confirm that he’s alone, he sets his bag on the ground and reaches for the Glock 17 tucked snugly into his shoulder holster, drawing it and clicking the safety off. Taking a breath, he pushes the door opening, letting his gun go into the room first as he scans the cramped dim space. 

He finds Koppel in the back corner of the room, gagged and cuffed to a chair in front of the desk. His face is bruised but the marks don’t look fresh, a few days old at least, and it doesn’t look like there’s been a fight in the room Arthur notes clinically. Quickly and efficiently he clears the hotel room, making sure the bathroom and closet are empty. Once he’s certain it’s just the two of them he approaches the other man, keeping his gun drawn as he yanks the gag out of Koppel’s mouth. As soon as it’s gone Koppel starts talking, words tumbling over each other in a rush to escape his mouth. 

“I’m sorry, Arthur, I’m so sorry. They-they said they’d kill me if I didn’t contact you. S-said they’d kill my family. I didn’t h-have a choice. I’m so sorry.” 

He’s half-sobbing as he apologizes again and again, terror and guilt warring in his voice. Realization sinks heavy in Arthur’s stomach like a rock. 

“Koppel, look at me, calm down” he barks, trying to keep his tone even and controlled. “Look at me. Who’s they? Who threatened you? Are they still here?”

Koppel opens his mouth, but whatever he was going to say dies in his throat as his eyes focus somewhere over Arthur’s shoulder, pupils blowing out with panic. Arthur spins, bringing his Glock up, but he doesn’t even have time to get a shot off before a heavy fist collides with the side of his head and sends him to the carpet, cheap synthetic polyester scraping at his cheek uncomfortably. He tries to roll back to his feet but a foot lands painfully on his wrist, pressing down until he releases his grip on his gun

“Knock him out.”

Someone says above him in a distinctly South African accent, and he bucks under restraining hands until he feels the prick of a needle in his neck. Almost immediately his muscles go limp, vision starting to fade and blur at the edges. The last thing he sees before he goes under is Koppel’s bruised tear-stained face, lips still mouthing the words of an apology. _Fuck_ , he thinks vaguely as someone starts to haul his unresisting body up, _the coffee definitely wasn't worth it._


	2. chapter one

It’s an unusually warm spring day. Normally temperatures here don’t rise above the 70’s until July but it must be at least 85 degrees today, barely cresting from May to April. Dom idly watches Philippa and James splash in the bright blue inflatable pool he’d set up in the backyard after they’d complained all morning about the heat. He can feel sweat sticking his light linen shirt to his back but the glass of lemonade in his hand is still cool, condensation clinging to the rim and rolling down the sides in fat beads. From somewhere inside the house he hears his phone ring, muted by the screen door and the kids shrieks of joy. For a second he considers not answering it, but his glass is near empty and he’s going to have to refill it soon anyways. 

“Philipa, watch your brother, I have to go inside for a minute. I’ll bring out some lemonade.”

He calls out as he pushes himself lazily to his feet, pulling open the sliding door and stepping into the air-conditioned refuge of the kitchen. Snagging his cell from where it’s charging on the counter he heads towards the fridge, glancing at the number flashing on the caller ID. It’s not one he recognizes. He pulls open the fridge door, tucking the cell into his shoulder while he reaches for the lemonade. 

“This is Dom,” 

He recites, half-expecting it to be a spam call. He’s really got to figure out how to block those. 

“Cobb,”

Says a dry British voice on the other end of the line. Dom starts, frowning a little, it’s been over a year since he last talked to Eames. 

“Eames, if this is about a job you know I’m retir-”

“It’s not a job.” Eames cuts him off. Dom thinks he sounds tired. “It’s Arthur. He’s dead.”

He lets the fridge door swing shut, and there’s a sudden chill in the air that has nothing to do with the AC. If this was another world, another lifetime, he might drop the pitcher in his hand, let it shatter on the kitchen floor and stand there while lemonade soaked into the cheap foam of his flipflops. This isn’t another lifetime though, and in this one he knows what if feels like to lose people so instead he sets the pitcher down carefully on the counter and the first thing out of his mouth isn’t ‘oh god’ it’s “where,” and “when”. There’s a numb feeling in his chest, creeping its way down his arms, into his hands. His grip on his phone is too tight and he can feel the plastic cutting in to the fleshy meat of his fingers. He focuses on the sharp bright pain of it, lets it pull him back to earth, to the words Eames is saying. 

“Kiev, a week ago. I was supposed to meet him in London for a job on Monday, when he didn’t show…” 

Eames trails off but he doesn’t have to finish his sentence for Dom to know. Arthur is always punctual and he never misses his appointments. Dom used to joke that the world would end before Arthur was late, and, in a twisted morbid way, he was right. He wishes he wasn’t. Eames clears his throat and continues, 

“I pulled a few strings, found a flight booked to Kiev under one of his aliases and the hotel he checked into. It burned down, with him in it.”

“It look like an accident?” Dom asks, because those are the kind of questions he has to ask now. His voice doesn’t sound like his own, echoing in his ears like a stranger’s. 

“Ukrainian police are saying it was faulty wiring, but I’m not sure if I believe them. The coroner seemed a little suspicious when the dental records didn’t come up with a match but a grand was enough to make sure he forgot his suspicions.” 

Dom swallows hard, nausea rising in his stomach. They had to use dental records to identify the corpse. But through the rising tide of horror a thought occurs.   
  
“Wait, if his…if his body was that badly burned how do we know it’s him?”

“He had his room key on him, wallet, and passport with his photo.”

Dom shakes his head, even though he knows Eames can’t see him. The numbness is beginning to fade now, replaced with an ache so sharp and fierce it threatens to take his breath away. He can feel his mind scrambling, searching desperately for an answer that makes sense here. One that explains away the unflinching finality of Eames’ words. 

“All of those could easily have been planted,” He says finally, knowing he’s grasping at straws. “we don’t know-“

“Dom,” Eames cuts him off again, voice almost gentle, and it’s strange to hear his first name out of the other mans mouth. “They found his totem in his hand. We both know there’s no way he’d let anyone else touch that.” 

Dom’s throat tightens, sugar-sweet lemonade suddenly sitting heavy in his stomach, clinging uncomfortably to his teeth. Eames is right, Arthur _would_ never, and at that realization the last lingering threads of hope fray and snap and snake through his fingers. He feels unmoored, like a boat who’s anchor has been cut. Arthur has always been there, through it all, and now he’s not and he never will be again and Dom’s not quite sure what to do with that fact. 

He tries to remember the last time he talked to Arthur, a month ago, maybe two. He’d been working a job somewhere in South America, Buenos Aires he thinks, and they’d only talked for a couple of minutes. Arthur had seemed tired, quieter even then usual. Dom had been telling him about some inane bickering at the PTA meeting for Phillipa’s elementary school. It seems so pointless now, so mundane. And that was it, the last thing he’d ever get to talk to Arthur about was entitled middle-class parents arguing over who got to host the end of year barbeque. Not saying thank you, like Dom never really did in all those years together, or I’m sorry. Just…the usual trivialities of a life that must mean nothing to Arthur. What a waste.

For a long time Dom’s doesn’t say anything. Arthur’s dead, he thinks over and over again. Dead, dead, dead, dead. Dead like Nash. Dead like Mal. Dead like so many other people Dom’s known, worked with. Loved. Phillipa’s laughter breaks him out of his reverie, and he glances out the window, watches as she slips around the kiddie pool, wet hair flinging water droplets into the air. God, the kids. He’s going to have to tell the kids. That Uncle Arthur who always came to visit even when Dom didn’t and brought them birthday presents and cards and apologies, is gone. He feels sick. 

Eames is still talking he realizes vaguely, about cheap hotels and faulty wirings and suspicious police officers, but none of it really registers yet. It will later, he knows, but right now he can’t bring himself to care. It doesn’t really matter how Arthur died, the end result is the same. 

“Is there going to be a funeral?”

He asks, interrupting Eames in the middle of a sentence. It’s Eames turn to go quiet, empty air buzzing with static between them. 

“I’m not sure.” He says finally. “His, uh, his body’s still here in Kiev.” 

Eames falters a little bit over the word body, but recovers well, clears his throat and continues. 

“Does he have any family? You knew him better then I did.” 

Cobb blinks, reaching up to rub at the bridge of his nose with his free hand. He can feel a headache forming, deep and pounding behind his right eye. He tries to think, casts his mind back. He’s pretty sure Arthur mentioned that his mom lived in Chicago at some point, but that was a long time ago and he never gave any specifics. Not even a name. Mostly, Cobb just thinks about how he was the only real family Arthur seemed to have. Him and Mal. And then just him. 

“I-I don’t know. Probably. Never really mentioned them to me.” He settles on, finally. Feels something that sits like guilt in his stomach. “Look, just get the remains released. I’ll handle the rest of it.” 

His throat clenches around the words but he forces them out, forces his voice to stay even and his hand not to shake and his chest not to cave in on itself. 

“Yeah, yeah, alright. I’ll call you.” Eames says, then pauses. His voice when he starts is all gentle again, Dom hates it. “And Cobb, I’m sorry. He didn’t deserve this.”

“No.” Dom agrees, and the word is bitter. “No, he didn’t.” 

He doesn’t move for a few minutes after Eames ends the call, just stands in his cool air-conditioned kitchen, one hand limply holding his phone, the other bracing himself against the counter. The lemonade still sits there, almost mocking in its sugary yellow mundanity. And somewhere, 6,000 miles away, Arthur’s burnt corpse sits in some overworked Ukranian ME’s morgue, and yet the world goes on. His kids still play in the pool outside and the ice cubes in the lemonade still melt and the clock still ticks on the wall. And Dom doesn’t have the time to stand here and wallow in his grief, not when he has two children outside waiting for him and a funeral to plan and plane tickets to buy. He can’t afford to mourn, not yet. So he takes a deep breath and pulls himself together and puts his phone down, walks back out into the stifling heat. 

James pauses in his splashing when Dom slides the screen door open, grinning at him with a gap-toothed smile because he lost his front tooth a week ago and it hasn’t grown back in yet. 

“Daddy, where’s the lemonade, I’m thirsty.” 

He calls, waving his arms above his head gleefully. Philippa turns too, and it must be because she’s almost seven now, or maybe because she’s old enough to remember what loss looks like on his face, but she frowns. 

“Are you alright dad?” 

He swallows, tries to smile. 

“Yeah, I’m okay sweetheart. Can you both get out of the pool for a little bit? I have to talk to you about something.” 

Phillipa nods and starts to clamber out of the kiddy pool, her face serious and a little apprehensive, like she’s already bracing herself for a blow, but James starts to pout. 

“But I don’t wanna get out yet,” He whines a little petulantly, crossing tiny arms across his chest. “It’s too hot. I want my lemonade.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” Dom says, as gently as he can manage, tamping down the frustration that starts to rear it’s ugly head. “But this is really important, okay. And you can have lemonade after, I promise.”

James frowns, but nods and clambers awkwardly out of the pool to stand by his sister. Dom walks down off the porch, kneels on the lawn in front of them. He can feel damp grass already soaking into the knees of his jeans, and he knows it’ll leave a stain. 

“Something…something happened to Uncle Arthur.” He starts, and somehow this never gets easier. “Something bad.”

James looks up at him with wide eyes, earlier petulance forgotten. 

“Is he okay?”

He asks. Dom bites his lip, trying to think of a kind way to say this, but Phillipa beats him too it. 

“He’s dead, isn’t he. Like mom.” 

She says quietly, voice trembling a little. She’s looking down at her bare feet, wet hair hanging in clumps in front of her face in a tangled curtain. Somehow it’s hearing it in his daughter’s voice that takes his breath away, and it takes a beat for him to reply. The thought of Mal, even so many years later, is still fresh and painful. A wound he doesn’t think will ever quite heal. 

“Not exactly like mom. There was an-an accident.” And god he hopes it was nothing but an accident, an awful, tragic, unfair accident. “There was an accident, and he died.”

Immediately James’ face crumples in on itself, a miniature implosion, and fat tears trickle down his cheeks as he starts to bawl. Dom reaches out and pulls him into his arms, fitting his head into the crook of his neck and holding him as he cries. He hadn’t known Arthur, really, had been too young to remember anything when Arthur was a regular visitor to their house. When Mal and Dom and Arthur spent more time together, in dreams, then they did apart. But his heartbreak is no less painful for it. 

Phillipa’s slower to react, eyes still hidden, but he can see her shoulders shake a little as she tries to hold back her own tears. Still cradling the back of James’ head he reaches out with his other arm. 

“C’mere sweetie. It’s okay.” 

He says, and then she’s throwing herself against his other shoulder whole body quivering. His shirt is soaked with salty tears and tepid pool water and snot, but he doesn’t care, just holds his children closer to him. 

“I-I d-don’t want h-him to be d-d-dead.”

Phillipa manages between sobs, voice muffled in his t-shirt, breath hitching unevenly in her throat, and Dom feels something in his chest fracture. 

“I know.” He whispers into her hair, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “I know, I don’t want him to be either.” 


	3. chapter two

Arthur wakes up. 

The first thing he registers is that his head hurts, and the second thing is that his hands are cuffed in front of him. In his experience that’s never a good thing to wake up too. Blinking a few times he pushes himself up and looks around, tries to get a bearing on his surroundings. He’s in a small room with no windows and bland undecorated beige walls. His mind feels muzzy and clouded, and his mouth is dry and tastes of stale coffee. Drug hangover he thinks, levering himself up into a sitting position to lean against the wall. He grimaces, trying to think back, trying to remember how he got here but draws a blank. 

Checking his pants pockets he finds his totem still tucked away, a sharp pang of relief echoing. Maneuvering it out a little awkwardly with his cuffed hands he tosses it on the plain-carpeted floor, and feels something in his chest unclench when it lands on one. At least he’s not dreaming, although that still leaves the question of how the hell he got wherever he is. Kiev, he thinks suddenly, he was in Kiev. Why was he in Kiev? 

_Koppel_ his addled brain supplies, Jüri Koppel had wanted to meet and then…suddenly it all comes back to him in a rush, Koppel, the hotel room, some asshole in a suit punching him in the face which would explain the throbbing pain behind his right eye. He’d been set up. The question is, by who. 

He feels the first tendrils of panic start to bloom in his stomach, and immediately and brutally crushes it. Panic makes you stupid, makes you make mistakes. Panic isn’t helpful. Instead he inhales a deep breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth, and takes stock. His gun is gone, and so is the knife he keeps strapped to his ankle. He’s still wearing his own clothes though, sans jacket. There’s an HVAC unit in the ceiling, blowing a stream of cool air that makes him shiver a little in his thin shirt. The room only has one door, on the wall opposite him, and it’s made of wood not metal. Wherever they’re holding him doesn’t look like a proper holding cell. Repurposed office maybe, somewhere temporary.

He’s thirsty, which means he must have been under for a while. It’s possible he’s not even in Ukraine anymore. Getting to his feet a little unsteadily he tries the door handle. It’s locked, of course, but worth checking. He always remembers what his drill sergeant back in boot camp used to say, it’s only a stupid mistake if you catch it. After that he walks the perimeter of the room, searching for any weakness in the walls or hidden vents. He finds nothing though, and after a thorough search he sits again, sliding down the wall till he’s on the ground. Whatever they dosed him with must still be working its way through his system because he feels dizzy and a little nauseous. 

Folding his legs in front of him he closes his eyes, breaths through the uncomfortable roiling of his stomach. There’s no way to get out of this room, so all he can do is wait and prepare. The cuffs around his wrists are tight to the point of being uncomfortable, cool metal digging into skin. For a second he contemplates trying to get out of them, but they’re tight enough that even if he popped a thumb out he doesn’t think he could get his hands free, so he discards the thought. Even if he could escape them, he’s still stuck in this room, and he has no idea what on the other side of the door, the kind of numbers he’s up against. He’s still not even sure who grabbed him, although he has a couple of ideas about that one. It’s better to wait, he thinks, and collect as much information as he can rather then run blindly into a situation. Wait, assess, then act. 

For a long time, nothing happens. Every now and then Arthur thinks he can hear the sound of footsteps in the hallway outside, but they never approach. He wonders how long it’s been since he was grabbed, if anybody’s noticed he’s missing yet. The problem with being a ghost, Arthur thinks, is that people are already used to you being gone. Still, he was supposed to meet with Eames on Monday, and it’ll set off alarm bells when he doesn’t show. Arthur may be many things, but he’s never late.

He wonders a little morbidly if anybody will look for him once they realize something’s wrong. Eames probably won’t, too concerned with his own skin to be concerned about Arthur’s. Cobb might have, once upon a time. But now he’s back with his kids, he’s safe, and Arthur wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. Why risk everything over a ghost. Over someone you used to know. 

He stops himself before he goes too far down that road. There’s no use moping around feeling sorry for himself, he can save that for later. Right now it’s better to accept that he’s likely on his own. And that’s okay, Arthur’s good at being on his own. He always has been. He spent a lot of years on his own before he met the Cobb’s, and he survived them just fine. Now he just has to figure out how to survive this. 

After an indeterminate number of hours someone finally comes for Arthur. It’s hard to mark the passage of time in a windowless room. He hears the lock on the door click, and clambers to his feet. Whatever’s coming, he wants to at least face it standing up.

Two men enter the room, broad and burly and flat faced, wearing cheap ill fitting suits. Arthur’s been around the block enough times to recognize hired muscle. One of them is holding a black bag in his hand, and he yanks it roughly over Arthur’s head. The fabric is thick and heavy, and immediately Arthur’s world is plunged into darkness. Every time he inhales it clings to his mouth and nose, his own breath hot in his face. Then there’s a hand at either elbow, dragging him out of the room. He can tell when they enter the hallway, a little more light filtering through the bag. 

Neither of the men say anything, and Arthur doesn’t waste his breath trying to get something out of them. Instead he focuses on where they’re going, counting the steps. He lets his feet trail a little, sinking lower to the ground so they have to half carry him. They go straight for a long time, before making two right turns and pausing. There’s the sound of a button being pushed and the whir of elevator doors opening, before someone shoves him inside unceremoniously. He stumbles a little, hitting the far wall of the elevator with his shoulder before he manages to right himself. 

As soon as the door slides shut again and the elevator starts to rise he closes his eyes, counting the seconds out in his head. The whole trip takes about half a minute, so it can’t have been more then three or four floors Arthur reasons. After being dragged around two more lefts and a right, there’s the sound of another door opening and he’s pushed down into a chair. It feels like leather, soft and smooth and expensive. The bag is finally pulled off his head, and he has to blink for a few seconds to adjust to the sudden brightness. When his vision clears it’s to the sight of a slick modern conference room, overlooking a cityscape. Wherever they are it’s definitely not Kiev anymore, but Arthur doesn’t recognize any landmarks.

“Enjoying the view?”

A voice asks, from somewhere behind him. It’s dry and slightly nasal, with the barest hint of a Scandinavian accent. A man walks into the room, taking a seat across the table from Arthur, casually adjusting his the cuffs of his suit. He’s short, mid-forties maybe, and balding a little. All in all he strikes a rather unassuming figure except for the suit he’s wearing, which while not flashy, is very very expensive. The brains of the operation then. Arthur doesn’t engage with the banter, just asks, 

“What do you want?”

Because if they haven’t killed him and dumped his body in a shallow grave somewhere yet, they definitely want something. The man eyes him appraisingly, slate grey gaze disturbingly flat.

“Information. A two years ago you and a team of extractors performed inception. My employers want to know how. And we want the names of everyone you worked with, besides Dominic Cobb, of course.” 

Arthur feels his blood run cold, but he doesn’t flinch, keeps his face cool and impassive. No use letting the man know he struck a nerve and play his hand early, expose his weak points. 

“And who might your employers be?”

He asks instead, voice neutral. His interrogator smiles faintly, and the expression looks wrong on his face.

“I believe I am the one asking the questions here, Arthur. And besides, I’d be disappointed in you if you didn’t already know. Now, I’d like those names, please.” 

The answer all but confirms Arthur’s suspicions. Looks like COBOL finally caught up to him. He’s not that surprised in the end, you can only run so far and so fast after all. 

“I don’t know them. We all used aliases.” he bluffs, “Couldn’t tell you even if I wanted too.” 

The man inclines his chin slightly, and one of the suits standing behind Arthur slams his head hard into the table. He feels the cartilage of his nose snap as a sharp overwhelming pain blooms in his face, his eyes watering with it. They pull him up by his shirt, blood already dripping down his chin, his beck, staining the crisp pinstriped collar of his button down. He can taste copper at the back of his throat, bright and salty and overpowering. 

“I wouldn’t recommend lying.”

The man says mildly. Arthur swallows thickly, spits a gob of saliva and blood onto the polished floor beside his feet.

“Not lying,” he forces out though gritted teeth. “Sorry I can’t help.”

The man sighs, scratching an eyebrow. 

“I was hoping you wouldn’t make this difficult. Take him.” 

He orders, gesturing with a flick of his wrist to the men behind Arthur. They reach down, pulling him up out of the chair by his armpits, starting to drag him away. 

“Let’s talk again soon, Arthur. And hopefully you’ll be feeling a little more cooperative.”

He calls, as the bag is pulled over Arthur’s head again.

They take him back down to the small beige room with no windows, and they beat the shit out of him. It’s not fun, but Arthur made it through the USMC. He’s dealt with worse. After a while they decide he’s had enough, or get bored, Arthur isn’t sure which. Either way drop him in a heap on the floor, turning to go. 

Dragging himself shakily up using the wall for support, Arthur stumbles forward and lands a glancing blow across the nearer man’s chin. His reward is a fist to the gut and he crumples, fingers latching onto the cheap polyester of the other man’s suit to keep himself upright. One hand slips into his pocket while the man tries to dislodge him off, rooting around till it closes on something long and thin and plastic. The man shakes him off with a grunt, and Arthur lets himself fall to the ground, doesn’t try to get up again as his fingers slide his prize deftly up his sleeve.

“Try that shit again and I’ll break your legs.”

He spits gruffly, and then they both turn around leave the room, door locking with a click behind them. Arthur winces, easing himself up into a sitting position, and slides the pen he just lifted into his hand. Carefully unscrewing the barrel from the tip he slides the ink chamber into his palm, then pulls off the metal spring it’s housed in. Looking down at the tiny piece of piece of metal he can’t help but smile a little. Discarding the rest of the pen he gets to work on the tedious process of uncoiling the spring into something that resembles a straight piece of wire. 

It’s a painstaking process, made more difficult by the way that his wrists are still cuffed in front of him and the fact that he keeps blinking in and out of consciousness. Guess they hit him harder then he thought. He finally manages to get it unbent though, and makes short work of the cuffs. They slip to the floor with a satisfying thud as he rubs the feeling back into numb hands.

Pushing himself up he stumbles his way to the door, slipping the wire into the doorknob and deftly maneuvering it till he hears the lock click satisfyingly. Arthur has always liked opening locked things; it’s why he likes the work he does so much he thinks. The chance to unlock any door in the world, any mind. It’s why he liked the Cobb’s. And maybe that’s why they liked him, too. Shaking the thought aside he pockets the wire, gently twisting the doorknob open and pushing the door slowly forward. It doesn’t creak, and he slips out into the hallway like a shadow. It looks like he drifted for longer then he thought; it was probably early afternoon when he had been brought up to the conference room, but it seems to be night now, lights dimmed and there’s a hush that’s fallen over the building. Seems like luck was in his favor for once.

With his head on a swivel he creeps his way slowly down the hall, sticking to the walls and corners, keeping an eye out for security cameras. He counts the steps out in his head he memorized earlier, making a right turn and then another. Just as the elevator bank comes into view there’s a squeak of leather shoes against linoleum and Arthur barely has time to turn before arms wrap around his waist, tackling him to the floor. He twists in the guards grasp, managing to twist onto his back and throw an elbow into his attackers face, feeling the satisfying crunch of bone. The two of them fumble, sliding across the polished floor as they both fight to get the upper hand. 

After a few seconds though Arthur manages to slip an arm around the man’s neck, locking it into place in the crook of his elbow and holding tight as the guard flails and struggles and eventually goes limp. Arthur shucks his body to the side. Still breathing, he notes, so just unconscious, not dead. Scrambling to his feet and Arthur runs for the elevators, furiously mashing the down button, pausing only to grab the Beretta from the guards shoulder holster. His fingers leave smears of blood across the plastic, and he steps back, watches as the red numbers above the doors count down. Behind him the shouts get louder, closer. Just around the corner. The red numbers keep ticking down, but not fast enough. Cursing Arthur abandons the elevator, pivoting instead to the door to the stairway. The slap of his feet against the concrete stairs is loud, echoing against the bare walls and up into the levels above. 

After running down seemingly endless flights of stairs he finally reaches the bottom of the stairwell. Carefully cracking the door open he sees and empty lobby, and across the room from him a set of glass doors leading out into a dark city street. Carefully, quietly, he slips through the doorway and into the lobby, keeping the gun low but at the ready. He makes it almost all the way across the floor, maybe ten feet away from the exit, when the hollow silence is shattered.

“On your knees.”

A voice. Arthur freezes, looking over his shoulder to see a security guard making his way down the set of looping ornamental staircases at the back of the lobby, gun drawn and aimed squarely at Arthur’s back. Looks at him, at the doors, the distance he’d have to make it across with no cover. 

“On your knees!”

The man shouts again, louder this time. Arthur winces, bites back a curse. There’s no way he’d make it to the door without a hole in him. He’d been close too, so damn close. They’re going to lock him down tight after this; his chances of getting out on his own just took a nosedive. Slowly he puts his hands up, stepping out from behind the pillar with his finger clearly off the trigger of his stolen Beretta. 

“Alright, I’m going to put my gun down now, okay, real slow.”

He says, leaning over to place it on the floor, sliding it towards the guard. He kicks it away, keeping his eyes and his weapon trained on Arthur. 

“Okay, okay, turn around slowly and get on your fucking knees.”

Arthur complies, keeping his hands above his hand and carefully kneeling. He hears the guard approach, shoes clicking against the polished marble, and then a rough hand pats him down. Once the man is satisfied Arthur’s not carrying anything else on him he pulls back. Arthur can hear the crackle of his radio as he keys the channel open. 

“Alright, got him down in the ground floor lobby. What do you want me to do?”

There’s a reply, too marred by static to understand, and then a short affirmative. The next thing Arthur feels is the cool metal of a gun being pressed to the back of his head. He feels panic start to build in his chest then, for the first time since he saw Koppel tied to a chair in a sketchy hotel room in Kiev. Panic he can’t push aside or bury, because there’s a gun to the back of his head and he’s on his knees in a glossy corporate lobby and he’s out of options. Out of places to run. 

It’s funny, Arthur sometimes feels like he’s spent his whole life running away. From his family first, and then from the army. From the ghost of Mal, and the hundred and one different people he and Cobb had pissed off. But you can only run so far and so fast before it all catches up with you, Dom had proved that, and he’d almost taken them all down with him. At least this way it’s just him. Clean and simple, like a bullet to the back of the head. Taking a deep breath, he closes his eyes. He doesn’t beg or plead, doesn’t ask for a second chance. Doesn’t give them that pleasure. Everyone has to die someday, he knows. He just wishes it hadn’t been so soon. 

Arthur doesn’t even hear the gun go off. 


	4. chapter three

The funeral, in the end, is a quiet affair. They have it in France, in a small town about two hours north of Paris. Arthur always liked France. It suited his sensibilities, he always used to say, whatever that meant. It’s not like Dom knew anywhere else that Arthur actually called home, in any real sense of the word. 

It took about a week to get Arthur’s body released from the morgue in Kiev, and to sort out the paperwork that came along with it. For Dom it was a week of very little sleep and a lot of coffee. Miles and Marie kept the kids distracted for most of it, taking them out for ice cream and zoo trips and movies, and he’s eternally grateful for that. He forgot how much form-filling and phone calls planning a funeral required, how much minutiae there is to drown in while you try to grieve. He didn’t have anything to do with Mal’s, didn’t even get to attend because he was to busy fleeing the country, but he vaguely remembers his mom’s years and years ago. He hadn’t remembered it being this hard though, but Mal had been with him then. Helping him. Now he’s alone, and he has to call funeral homes and order a grave stone to order and a will to sort out. It’s exhausting.

The day of the funeral it rains, a light persistent drizzle that coats everything in fine beads of moisture, clinging to jackets and pants. The small graveyard is empty except for them, damp and grey and chilly despite the season. It feels appropriate.

The ceremony is sparsely attended. Miles and Marie are there, of course. Miles and Arthur had always gotten along well and Marie had spoiled him rotten, always insisting that he needed to eat more and drink less coffee which Arthur had fielded with his usual good grace. Ariadne flew in on a redeye last night from a job she’s been working in Germany. She looks pale and small and sad in a neat black dress, sitting next to an unusually somber Eames. There are a few faces Dom recognizes from the business, a couple he’s even worked with in the past. Even Yusuf is there, suit rumpled and a little dusty. Saito didn’t attend, which doesn’t surprise Dom. There’s an understated but elegant and obviously expensive arrangement of lilies and white orchids that was delivered without a tag though. Arthur would have liked them, Dom thinks. 

All in all the whole thing lasts about an hour. He gets up and says a few words, about friendship and loyalty, about how Arthur was always there for him, even when he wasn’t there for himself. It seems paltry, in the face of all that Arthur has done for him, endured for him, but Dom has never been good at speeches. Phillipa and James sit pale faced and silent through the whole thing, and Dom thinks it’s unfair that this is already the second funeral they’ve had to attend in their short lives. Think about this job, the way it takes and takes and takes. The way it nearly took him. 

At the end, the coffin is lowered steadily, inexorably, into the grave, sleek and black and expensive like one of Arthur’s suits. Everyone lines up to pay their respects, one by one. Some people say nothing, some stay for a long time. He sees Ariadne swipe away a few tears when it’s her turn, half hidden by the drizzle. Dom’s last, and he almost hesitantly approaches the gaping hole in the green turf. Leaning down he takes a handful of damp dark earth, lets it crumble slowly between his fingers and fall, pattering against the lid of the coffin like raindrops. It leaves dirt creased into the lines of his palms, his fingers, and he wipes it idly off onto the leg of his pants as he crouches beside the lip of the grave. 

“I’m sorry, Arthur.” 

He whispers to the coffin, and he means sorry for right now, but also sorry for so many years. For Mal, and not calling as often as he should have, for everything. For not being a very good friend, through most of it. He wants to say more, but his throat tightens too much to get the words out so he just sits there, feeling rain soak through his thin jacket. Chilly and bleak and endless. After a few minutes he feels a warm hand on his shoulder, and he looks back to see Ariadne standing behind him. She smiles wanly, squeezes a little. 

“Come on,” She says, gesturing to where Yusuf and Eames are standing. “We’re going to get a drink.”

They go to a small hole-in-the-wall bar a few blocks away from the cemetery. Miles and Marie offered to take Phillipa and James back to the hotel, so it’s just the four of them. It’s still early in the day, enough so that there are only two other people scattered around the cramped room. Dom let’s Eames go up to the bar to order, instead choosing a table towards the back wall and sinking bonelessly into a chair. Suddenly he feels exhausted, the weight of the past week’s sleepless nights catching up to him all at once. Yusuf goes to help Eames carry their drinks back, but Ariadne sits down delicately next to him, uncomfortably perceptive eyes pinning him down. He avoids her gaze, focuses on the fine scratches that line the wood of the oak table instead. 

“Are you okay?”

She asks, quietly. Behind her he can hear Eames chatting with the bartender, the dull hum of depressingly French music. He swallows. 

“Yeah. Just tired” 

He lies. Ariadne’s lips turn downwards at the corners, brow furrowing, but he’s saved from further interrogation by Eames and Yusuf’s arrival. Yusuf sets a glass of scotch in front of Dom, and he murmurs a thanks. Eames collapses into the seat next to him, legs stretched out in front of him, one hand shoved idly in his pocket. 

“Christ, I hate funerals.” he complains with a sigh. “Bloody depressing things.”

“You’re not supposed to enjoy funerals, you’re supposed to suffer through them.”

Yusuf quips, a little dryly. 

“To Arthur,” 

Ariadne says, raising her glass, and they all echo it after it her. _To Arthur_. Dom lifts his drink to his lips, takes a long sip and lets the scotch burn its way down his throat. 

“You know, I always figured Arthur would be the last of us to go.” Eames says after a while, his first beer sits empty by his elbow, and he’s nearly finished with his second. “Tough little bastard to kill.”

To most it might sound callous, but Dom knows Eames’ better then most now, has dreamed with him. Everyone grieves in different ways, he supposes. Who is he to judge. 

He does have a point though. Dom had always figured the job might kill him, and Eames has robbed half the world’s population of rich and powerful at this point. Even Yusuf, who trails along the edges of a shady underworld that could easily swallow you whole. But never Arthur, Arthur with his expensive suits and sweaters and regimented planners, and his neat world that always fit into boxes. The way he was always, _always_ , in control. Dom had never pictured Arthur dying. It would too much of an inconvenience for him, after all. It might make him late. Dom can’t help but laugh a little at the thought, but it dies in his throat almost before it’s finished.

“Arthur tried to talk me out of it, you know. Inception. Told me it was going to get us all killed. But in the end, he followed me to Paris. Followed me right into the dream.”

He says after a while, like a confession. Eames shrugs, nimbly flipping an old worn poker chip he’s pulled from somewhere from finger to finger. 

“It was quite the hefty paycheck, perhaps he decided it was worth it after all.”

Cobb shakes his head though. 

“It wasn’t about the money. He could have made more then enough to get by in some cushy private security job, or as a contractor. It was never about the money for Arthur.”

Eames pauses, poker chip disappearing into his palm, sighs. Then says, wry and wistful all at once. 

“It wasn’t, was it.”

They say their goodbyes much later, Ariadne’s had a few too many glasses of wine and Yusuf offers to share a cab back to the hotel with her as they’re staying at the same one. She hugs him, when the taxi pulls up to the curb, pulls him close, fingers tight against his back. 

“He really cared about you, you know.”

She says as she leans back, so quietly the wind almost steals it away. Dom nods, and thinks that might be the problem. Then she slips into the cab after Yusuf with a last wan smile, and it’s just him and Eames. 

“Well,” he says, a little awkward, but mostly just tired. “I think I’m going to head back too. See if I can catch the kids before bedtime. Night Eames.”

“Hold on,” Eames calls, pushing himself off the wall he’d been leaning against as Dom starts to turn away. “I wanted to give you something.” 

Dom pauses, a little confused, and watches as Eames reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small red die. He recognizes it instantly, and feels his stomach flip. 

“Eames…”

He starts, but Eames just shakes his head, holding it out to him.

“Look, it was in the bag with all of his things the police released to me and it…it just didn’t feel right to throw it away I guess.”

Dom still hesitates, unsure, and Eames shakes his hand a little, the die rattling around his palm.

“Come on, I think he would have wanted you to have it.”

Dom’s not so sure that’s true. Arthur was never sentimental about things like this, and it still feels a little sacrilegious to touch another man’s totem. Arthur’s dead though, and the die is just a die now. Nothing but a hunk of cheap red plastic without its proper owner, any meaning stripped away from it. And Eames is right, it seems wrong to just throw it away. Sighing, he reaches out and takes it, turning it over in his fingers. 

It’s smooth and slightly warm from Eames’ pocket, glinting a little in the light of the streetlamp above them. He tucks it away, tries not to think about the way it sits heavy like a rock in his coat pocket.

“Thank you.”

He says, and means it. Because for all that Eames tries to pretend he doesn’t give a shit, he didn’t have to track Arthur down when he didn’t show. Didn’t have to call Dom either. Eames nods, shrugs lopsidedly. 

“Least I could do.” He says, a little maudlin. A little bitter. “And Cobb, look out for yourself, yeah? Don’t want to have to go to another funeral anytime soon.”

Dom smiles a little, shaking his head as Eames starts to amble away. 

“Could say the same to you.”

He calls after him. All he gets in reply is a hand raised in a last goodbye.

Dom’s flying back to the states the next morning. The rest of the world hasn’t stopped after all, and he’s running out of vacation days, Phillipa needs to go back to school. He goes to visit Arthur’s grave one last time before they take the train back to Paris though, leaves the kids back at the hotel with their grandparents. It’s still overcast, but it’s not raining today at least. He pulls his light jacket closer against the mild breeze. 

Arthur’s grave is smooth and green now, flowers still propped against the grave marker where they’d been left yesterday. Already the lilies are tinged with rot, a faint yellowing at the petals pale edges. For a long time Dom stands there, staring blankly at the headstone. The smooth crisp inscription not yet worn and blurred by age, _Arthur 1979-2012 Non hodie quod heri_. I am not today what I was yesterday.

When the funeral home had asked what he wanted engraved, he realized he didn’t even know Arthur’s real last name. A hundred and one different aliases he’s used, maybe, but never his real name. He wonders now why he never asked him that, in the nearly eight years they’d known each other. Why he’d never asked him his real name, or where his parents lived, or if he had any siblings. 

He guesses, in the moment, in the dream, those things had never seemed important. And by the time he’d realized they were it was too late and Mal was gone, and then nothing was important after that. Nothing except his kids, seeing their faces again. Still, he wishes he’d asked. Wishes he’d been a little less selfish when it had mattered. 

He reaches into his pocket, where Arthur’s die still sits, rolls it around between his fingers. Thinks about how he’s always collecting the remnants that people leave behind. He wonders if what he is feeling is grief, or selfishness again. If he’s upset that Arthur is dead, or upset that Arthur won’t be there when he needs him anymore. Mostly he feels tired and guilty and so very sorry. And maybe that’s the same thing. 

“You know,” He starts, feeling a little silly but doing it anyway. “Eames was right. You really were a tough little bastard to kill, in the end.”

And he thinks about what it must have felt like, to burn to death. He wonders if it hurt, or if Arthur suffocated from the smoke first. His thumb rubs idly at the smooth surface of the die, the rounded edges and corners. The die they found in clutched in the hand of Arthur’s burnt corpse, the thing he reached for even as he died. His fingers stumble and slow as realization hits him like a freight train. The die is _smooth_ , not melted or scarred by heat.

Hand shaking a little he pulls the totem out of his pocket, breath catching in his chest. Crouching in the dew-wet grass he reaches forward, tosses the die on the flat marble base of the headstone. After a few seconds of indecision it finally rolls to halt, four dots facing upwards, and he feels sick. No one’s supposed to know your totem like you do, but he and Arthur had spent nearly five years on the run living in each other’s pockets, in each other’s heads. He knows.

There’s an edge of panic to his movements now as he reaches back into his pocket for his own totem. He’s been out of the game two years now, but there are some habits that die harder then others. He spins the top hard, barely daring to breath as he watches its revolutions slow and slow and falter, before it topples onto its side next to the die. 

A gasp claws its way out of his throat, and he falls backwards, heart thudding loudly in his chest as his mind scrambles to process two things. One, that this isn’t a dream. And two, whatever Eames gave him, it’s not Arthur’s totem. 


	5. chapter four

Arthur wakes up. It’s not a graceful awakening, his heart pounding wildly in his chest, breath coming quick and harsh in his throat like he’d run a marathon. There’s a quickly fading phantom pain in his brain, one that’s soon superseded by the very real ache at the side of his face. For a long second Arthur doesn’t move, just tries to comprehend how the fuck he’s still alive when the last thing he remembers clearly is getting shot in the back of the head. 

“Welcome back.”

A familiar voice says from his left, it’s faint Scandinavian accent as dry as ever. Arthur jerks in surprise, and for the first time since he opened his eyes actually takes in his surroundings. He’s in a lab, high tech and modern and glistening, and he’s strapped securely to a table. There’s an IV running from the crook of his elbow to a PASIV machine on the table next to him. He can see that there’s someone on the next table over, but the balding man from the conference room blocks Arthur’s view of their face. 

“What-” Arthur says, stumbling a little over the words as his mind races to catch up to the reality that he is in fact still alive. “You can’t be here. I… it wasn’t a dream. I checked.” 

The balding man smiles, he’s playing with something in his left hand Arthur notices. Something red. 

“Are you sure about that? It can be very easy to get confused.” 

As he says it he holds up the object in his hand for Arthur to see. It’s a red die, weighted to always land on one. A simple irony Arthur had always enjoyed, a loaded die that would always lose. He recognizes it immediately, has held it in his hands hundreds of times, felt every scratch and scuff and scar on its surface. His blood runs cold as the implications settle. 

“No.” 

He breathes, unable to keep the horror out of his voice. The man ignores him, examining the die, shifting it back and forth so it catches the bright sterile light of the fluorescent lamps. 

“It’s quite an elegant solution for such a...complex…problem. A totem, you people call it, right?” 

He says you people, like he’s talking about another species. Like he wasn’t in Arthur’s head a few moments ago, as insidious as a cancer. Arthur feels a steady cool rush of dread wash over him. He didn’t know he was dreaming. He didn’t know. 

“How did you know where to find me?”

He asks, when he doesn’t think he’s going to scream if he opens his mouth anymore. The man shrugs, as if the answer is the simplest thing in the world. 

“It wasn’t too difficult, we just talked to an old friend of yours.”

He says, stepping aside to reveal the face of the other person in the room. Arthur’s breath catches in his throat in recognition and a sort of muted horror. Across from him Nash has the gall to look guilty, refusing to meet Arthur’s eyes. 

“Try not to blame him too much,” the man continues conversationally, “We did have to break both of his kneecaps first.”

“I’m sorry.”

Nash whispers as he sits up, pulling the IV out of his arm, still not meeting Arthur’s gaze. Mostly it’s a little irritating. If you’re going to stab someone in the back, Arthur thinks, you should at least commit to it. Its not like Nash owed him anything, they abandoned him to COBOL and he returned the favor. It’s all so cyclical, something’s that played out a hundred times before and will a hundred times again. A tired old book he’s read the end too before. 

“Now that you know where we stand, let’s try this again.” The Scandinavian says, “Let’s talk about inception. Who was on your team?” 

Arthur says nothing, just stares back at him stolidly. The man meets his gaze, holds it. When it becomes clear Arthur isn’t going to give him anything he shakes his head, almost disappointed. 

“Alright then, have it your way. Put him under again.” He tells someone behind Arthur he can’t see, and as Arthur feels the familiar rush of somnacin in his veins, he leans down close. “You might think you’re tough now, but you and I? We have _all_ the time in the world together.” 

Arthur blinks, and he’s in the beige room again. His hands are un-cuffed this time. The side of his face still hurts though, and when he reaches up to touch it with his fingers he feels tender bruised flesh. Inhaling deeply he looks around. This must be a dream, he thinks, because he doesn’t remember how he got to this room. The last thing he does actually remember is the lab, and Nash. Fucking Nash. Still, he can be reasonably sure this is a dream. He’s trained for this, to notice the things that are just a little off, it’s his job and it’s a job he’s damn good at. 

This time he doesn’t have to wait very long. The door clicks open, and two suits walk in, the Scandinavian following a step behind. Arthur eyes them from where he’s still sitting on the ground, not bothering to stand. If that irritates his interrogator he doesn’t show, his expression as bland and still as ever. Neatly he shucks off his jacket, hanging it on the doorknob, before slowly and deliberately starting to roll up his sleeves. 

“Get him up,”

He orders, jerking his chin in Arthur’s direction. The two suits move forward, roughly grabbing Arthur under the arms and dragging him to his feet. He lets them, keeps his gaze on the man in front of him. He knows what’s coming, he’d have to be a fool not to, but he’s not going to let them see him afraid. 

“Why don’t we start somewhere easy. Give me one name, just one. Who was your architect?”

The man says mildly, as he finishes folding his sleeve neatly at his elbow. Arthur thinks of Ariadne, of her curiosity, her kindness. The way that she was, in her own quiet way, maybe the strongest of them all. He thinks of the faint brush of her lips against his, nothing but a dream perhaps. He looks up at his captor. 

“No.” 

He states simply, not bothering to lie anymore. The end result will be the same after all. The man nods, although he doesn’t look particularly surprised. Then, nearly without warning, drives his fist into Arthur’s stomach. It punches the air out his lungs, and for a long moment he can focus on nothing but struggling to gasp in a shallow breath. He’s remarkably strong for his small stature, a detached part of Arthur’s mind thinks through the shock. The next blow is to his face, pain blossoming in his cheekbone, echoing in his eye socket, his nose. He bit his tongue when he got hit the second time, and he feels blood start to drip down his chin, warm and thick and salty. 

The man pauses then, reaching into his pocket for something. When he pulls his hand out he’s holding a set of brass knuckles. Slowly and deliberately, in the same way he’d rolled his sleeves up, he slips them onto his right hand. 

“Last chance, Arthur. Just give me a name, and all this goes away.”

“Answer’s the same. You can tell Woodruff to go to hell. I know he hired you for this.”

Arthur replies. This time when he hits him in the face Arthur feels something fracture in his cheekbone. 

The man is oddly efficient in his violence, like it’s an unfortunate chore he has to get out of the way, or a particularly distasteful assignment. Finally, just when Arthur is on the verge of blacking out, it stops. At some point his legs gave out and now the only thing holding him up is the hands locked under his arms. For a second he just hangs there, breathing shallowly in and out through his nose and trying not to throw up. It’s just a dream, he reminds himself. Just a dream. 

“Give me a fucking name Arthur, I’m starting to get tired of the silent treatment.”

The man says, flexing his right hand and inspecting his bruised knuckles with a frown. Arthur doesn’t bother to reply, just swings his head back and forth, keeps his eyes locked on the floor. There’s a smear of blood staining the neutral beige carpet now. The man sighs, 

“If you won’t talk then maybe we should pay your friend Cobb a visit then, or those adorable kids of his. I hear they’ve grown so much since he’s been gone. How old is his daughter now, six, seven?”

That finally cracks Arthur’s carefully constructed façade of indifference and he finally looks up, forcing the words out through wheezing breaths and the blood in his mouth.

“Stay…stay the fuck…away from them.”

The man smiles, that faint bland meaningless _infuriating_ smile. 

“I don’t think you’re in any position to make threats here.” 

Arthur’s had a terrible day. He’s been drugged, kidnapped, shot in the head. And now they’re threatening his friend, his friend’s kids. Just because they have him up against a wall, that doesn’t mean he has to make it easy for them, in fact he intends not too. 

Without warning Arthur suddenly goes slack in his captors grip, forcing them to take his full body weight as he sinks to the floor. They both fumble to adjust their hold on him, and Arthur takes the opportunity to twist his arm out of the man on the rights hand. He drops to his knees, using the momentum of his fall and the sudden lack of a counterbalance on his other side too throw the man on his left over his shoulder and directly into his friend, both of them collapsing into a heap of limbs. A gun goes skittering across the floor and he lunges for it, fingers closing around cool metal. Rolling onto his back he puts a bullet in both men’s heads before they can untangle themselves. 

Scrabbling to his feet he turns the gun on the last obstacle standing between him and the door, finger hovering over the trigger. Neither of them says anything, and tenuous fragile silence hangs in the air between them for a second. Then the man steps to the side, lifting his hands in supplication, and Arthur bolts past him.

He slams open the door, stumbling out into the hallway like a drunk. He’s not sure exactly what to do now, this is just a dream after all and there is no escape waiting for him, so he just runs blindly down the hall. Above him the lights turn red, and somewhere in the distance a deep grating alarm starts to sound. Behind there’s voices shouting, growing closer. He twists, firing a few shots behind him as he skids around a corner. He’s not sure if he hits anything, and soon the gun clicks empty in his hands. He throws it to the side, looking around desperately for an out. All he finds is a long hallway lined with locked doors. 

So he keeps running, turns down corners and hallways that all seem to lead into each other like snarled ball of yarn. He feels panic start to rise in his throat, ugly and sour and overwhelming, and this time it’s not so easily pushed aside. So Arthur runs, until he can’t anymore. 

They finally corner him in a dead end. He leans against the wall, panting a little and exhausted as five men round the corner and slowly approach him, like some sort of wild caged animal running free. The Scandinavian steps forward, cool and unruffled, his neat white sleeves still rolled up to his elbows. 

“That was quite impressive. I see now why Cobb kept you around for so long.” He says, and there’s a touch of genuine respect in his tone. It makes Arthur’s skin crawl. “However, I think it’s time to stop running.”

“And if I don’t?”

The man smiles. 

“Then my men will shoot you. And they do not miss.” 

“How do I know this isn’t just another dream?”

Arthur asks, eyeing the guns currently pointed in his direction. The man shrugs.

“You don’t. But are you willing to gamble? You don’t seem like a gambler.” 

And Arthur thinks of the sound of clacking dice and smoke-stained casino carpets and the way that even when there wasn’t enough money to put food on the table there always seemed to be enough to lay a bet on the horses. He says nothing, and apparently that’s enough of an answer because the Scandinavian shakes his head, turning to one of the guards currently training their weapons on Arthur. 

“Give me your gun,” 

He orders. The guard hesitates but complies, handing it over. He slips the magazine out, removing all the bullets before slipping one back in and reloading the gun. Then he hands it too Arthur. The weight is familiar in his hand, like an old friend. 

“If this is just a dream, then do it yourself. You’ve killed yourself in dreams before, one bullet to the head, _bang_ ,” He puts his hand up to his head, pointer finger and thumb extended, mimes pulling the trigger. “And you wake up. Easy. You can’t escape us, can’t run away. So do it. Wake yourself up, Arthur. Or I will take you apart piece by fucking piece till you’re begging me to stop.” 

Slowly, slowly Arthur lifts the gun to his head, presses the muzzle to his temple. His finger is on the trigger, and it would be so easy. He knows exactly how much pressure he needs to pull it, the curve of his finger like second nature to him now. But something holds him back, an uncertainty that’s taken root deep inside of him. He doesn’t know, _how_ can he know, if this is real or not. He tightens his finger, enough for the trigger guard to cut unforgivingly into skin, enough to depress the trigger, just slightly. But in the end, he can’t pull it. His finger trembles and his breath catches in his throat, and Arthur, who is always in control of himself, can’t pull the trigger. And just like that, they have him trapped in something much harder to break out of then a prison cell or locked room. His own doubt, his own fear, is the only thing holding him back. Just like that, they have him.

Hand shaking with defeat he slowly lowers the gun, and the man laughs, reaching forward to take it from Arthur’s unresisting grip. 

“That’s what I thought.”

He says, almost amused, before lifting the gun and shooting Arthur in the head. 

Somewhere, Arthur wakes up. 


	6. chapter five

Dom makes two calls, still sitting on his ass in front of Arthur’s grave-someone’s grave. The first is to Miles telling him to cancel their train tickets. The second is to Eames. 

“It’s not him.”

He says, half-wild. 

“What’s not him, what are you talking about Cobb?”

Eames asks, apprehension lacing his tone. 

“It’s not _Arthur_.” He explains, knowing he must sound crazy. “It-the totem’s wrong. It’s not him Eames.”

There’s a pause and then a long sigh, the faint sound of a hand brushing against stubble like Eames is running a hand down his face. 

“Cobb,” He replies, half gentle-half annoyed, like he’s talking to a child that doesn’t understand something simple. “You’re not making sense-

Dom doesn’t let him finish, already pushing himself up off the ground, heading for the entrance of the graveyard. 

“Listen, I’ll explain everything. Just get Ariadne and Yusuf. I’ll meet you at the same place as yesterday. I’ll explain. I promise.”

He hangs up before Eames has a chance to respond. They’ll be there, he knows they will. 

They’re waiting for him when he pushes the door open, at the same table in the back as the day before. Yusuf looks as placid as ever, Eames looks antsy, Ariadne just looks worried. Eames is the first to say anything. 

“I was supposed to be on a plane,” Eames says, checking his watch, “Half an hour ago. Want to tell me why I’m not?”

He pops a bar nut into his mouth, chewing it loudly. There’s a beer sitting in front of him, but it doesn’t look like it’s been touched. Cobb sits down, pulls the die out of his pocket and puts it down on the table in front of him. They all look at, like they’re waiting for it to unlock the secrets of the universe. 

“It’s… It’s Arthur’s totem.”

Ariadne says finally, looking up at him. He shakes his head. 

“No, it’s not.” 

Eames throws his hands up in frustration. 

“Jesus Cobb, none of us want him to be dead but for fuck’s sake we buried the man. _Yesterday_.”

Dom let’s his anger wash over him, through him. Waits for him to finish. Then starts again.

“Listen, think about it. ME said this was in his hand, when he died right? If that fire was hot enough to torch Arthur’s body to a crisp his totem should be a puddle of plastic, but it’s not.”

Yusuf’s watching him, and his face is impassive but his eyes are bright and sharp. 

“There’s something else, though, isn’t there?”

He presses, gentle but insistent. Dom sighs, reaching out he rolls the die, watches as it lands on four again. 

“It’s the wrong number.” 

He says, quietly. Watches realization dawn on all of their faces. 

“Christ,” Eames mutters, but he doesn’t sound angry anymore. Just tired. “Of course you know his totem.”

Dom ignores him though, looking to the one person at the table who hasn’t spoken yet. The one person he trusts the most perhaps, who has pulled him back from madness and grief before. Ariadne stares back, lower lip caught between her teeth. 

“Ariadne?”

He prompts. For a long second she just looks at him, eyes searching his face for something, and there’s a terrible hope in her eyes. 

“Are you sure?”

She asks finally, evenly. He nods. He is sure, and not just because he wants to be. She nods back, looks to Yusuf and Eames. 

“I believe him. It makes sense.” 

Eames winces, popping another peanut into his mouth.

“Alright, so if he’s not dead, then what? Someone sure as hell went to a lot of trouble to make him look like he was.” 

Yusuf shrugs. 

“Perhaps to make sure no one went looking. Or perhaps he did this himself, to throw someone else off the trail.” 

Dom considers that for a second. He and Arthur have pissed off enough powerful people that they have a full deck to choose from in who might want them in the ground, and plenty of reasons to be looking over their shoulders, but he dismisses it. It’s not Arthur’s style to play dead. He’s too direct for that, and maybe it’s wishful thinking but he can’t help but believe Arthur would let him know somehow. Not just disappear like this. He shakes his head. 

“No, I don’t think this was Arthur. I think someone took him. Someone powerful, and with enough resources to pay a lot of people off.”

“Do you think this has something to do with the Fischer job?”

Eames asks, obviously connecting dots in his head and not liking where the line leads. Dom shrugs. 

“Could be. Could be something else. Arthur’s worked a lot of jobs, pissed a lot of people off.” 

He hesitates before continuing.

“Look, I’m going after him. I owe him that much, but I understand if any of you want out. Whoever we’re up against is obviously dangerous, and I can’t force you to risk your lives again. There’s no shame in walking away now.”

Ariadne shakes her head, answering almost before Dom’s finished talking. 

“I’m not going anywhere. I was pretty much finished in Germany anyways, they don’t need me there anymore. He was…he _is_ my friend too.”

And there’s something almost wistful to the way she says it. Eames grimaces, face twisting in some internal conflict, broad shoulders flexing under his tacky tweed jacket. Finally they slump, and he heaves out a long breath of air. 

“Fine.” He says, begrudgingly. “I’m in. He may have a stick up his ass, but I’d hate to see him rotting away in some dank hole somewhere. Anyways, if someone’s coming for me I’d like to know it before they stab me in the back not after.”

Yusuf’s the last to reply. 

“I’m on vacation anyways.”

He says mildly, smiling a little. Dom feels a swell of relief crest in his chest. He would’ve done it alone if he had to, but he didn’t really want to. 

“Alright.” He says, letting a breath whistle out between his teeth. “Alright. First things first, we have to find out why the hell Arthur was in Kiev. And whose body that was if it wasn’t Arthur’s.” 

As if on cue his phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out, checks the caller ID. It’s Miles. He winces. 

“Look, I have to run back to the hotel. You get started, let me know if you find anything.”

He says, already standing up and grabbing his coat from the back of his chair. 

“Yeah alright, run off and leave us holding the bag.”

Eames grumbles a little, but Dom ignores his, heading for the exit and answering the call. 

“Dom, where the hell are you. Why aren’t we going back to Paris.”

Miles is sharp even through the phone, and Dom winces. 

“Look, I’m on my way to the hotel, I’ll be there in ten okay. We can talk then.”

Miles is waiting outside his door when he gets to his room, arms folded across his chest. He’s frowning. 

“Marie’s keeping the children entertained in our room for now.” He says, “You’d better have a damn good explanation for all this.”

Dom pulls his key card out of his pocket, unlocks the door. 

“Come on,” he says, pushing the door open and gesturing Miles in, “We should talk inside.”

Miles’ frown doesn’t leave his face, but he follows Dom into his room.

“Arthur’s still alive.” 

Dom says bluntly once they’re inside, figuring there’s no sense in beating around the bush. Miles eyebrows disappear into his hairline, and he takes a sudden seat at the small desk. 

“You’re sure?”

He asks, an echo of Ariadne a little while ago. Again Dom nods. Miles takes a second to process that, and his expression shifts from surprise to weary resignation. 

“And you’re going to try and find him.”

Dom nods again, doesn’t bother to fight it. Miles shakes his head, 

“You’re going to leave them again.”

He states, and it’s not really a question. The accusation in his words bites deep, guilt rising in Dom’s throat. 

“Arthur needs me.” 

He says, trying to explain, but Miles’ face just darkens. 

“Your _children_ need you. You were gone for three years, Dom, three years. For god’s sake James barely remembered what you looked like. Please, stay, this time. Let some one else handle this. They need you.”

And Dom knows that. He doesn’t want to leave his kids again, with every fiber of his being he doesn’t want to leave them. But he also knows that he can’t just abandon Arthur to rot wherever he is. 

“Miles, I-I can’t. Arthur is a part of the reason I’m even here with them now. You know that. Will you just… will you take the kids, for a bit, just until we find him.”

Miles face softens at that, and he sighs, the fight draining out of him. 

“I know that, I do. Arthur’s been a good friend to you, to us all.” He pauses, “But I’m not breaking the news to the children again. That’s up to you.” 

Cobb takes a deep breath. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

Telling his kids is the hardest thing Dom has ever done. Last time there’d been no time to think, just a plane ticket for a flight that left in an hour and the knowledge that if he’d stayed he’d end up in prison for the rest of his life. There’d been no chance to say goodbye, to say I’m sorry. Somehow this is harder. 

“Why do you have to leave again?”

James asks, sounding on the verge of tears. Dom sighs, gently brushing James’ bangs out of his face. He’ll need a trim soon. 

“Because, I have to take care of something for work.”

He hadn’t told them the real reason, of course, not wanting to get their hopes up and because it’s too much to explain. Just that he had to leave on business for a little while. 

“Why can’t we come with you then?”

Phillipa asks, folding her tiny arms across her chest stubbornly. 

“Because it’s grown-up work, it’d be really boring for you. Grandma and grandpa are going to be so much more fun, don’t you think? They said they might even take you to Disneyland.” 

James just shakes his head back and forth, hair flopping against his forehead. 

“I don’t want Grandma and Grandpa, or Disneyland, I want to go with you.”

He mumbles, tremulously. 

“I know.” Dom whispers, more sorry then he’s ever been, “I know. But this is really important, I wouldn’t be going if it wasn’t.”

“I hate your stupid job, I hate it! Why do you always have to leave! You should just quit.”

Phillipa shouts suddenly, the emotional see-saw sliding quickly from tears into anger in the way that children often do. 

“I-I can’t quit. Not right now. But this is the last time, alright. After this I’ll never have to leave you guys again.”

She sniffs a little, then nods. 

“Promise you’ll come back?”

She asks, not angry anymore, just scared and sad. Dom nods, feeling a fierce love bloom in his chest. 

“I promise.” 

That night Phillipa and James sleep in bed with Dom, and in the morning he drives them to the train station. Stands on the platform and watches them board, watches the train pull away from the platform and feels like a part of him is being pulled away with it. It’s just temporary he reminds himself as he heads back into town. He can go home whenever he wants. It’s only temporary.

The rest of the team has set up a base of operations in Ariadne’s hotel room, all crammed into the small space. Yusuf lets Dom in when he knocks, his hair messy and glasses pushed up on his head. Ariadne’s on the bed, laptop balanced on crossed legs, and Eames is pacing back and forth between the bathroom and the desk, talking to someone on the phone in Russian. He tilts his chin in greeting when he see’s Dom, before groaning loudly at something on the other side of the line, letting loose a rather impressive rapid-fire string of curse words. 

“How’s it going,”

He asks quietly, sitting down to next Ariadne. She shrugs. 

“Not great, to be honest. Nobody’s talking, and all the paperwork has already been locked up. Whoever’s behind this is good.” She pauses, eyes narrowing a little as she looks at him. “You already know, don’t you.”

He sighs, rubs a hand down his face feeling very old and tired. 

“I have an idea. You ever heard of COBOL engineering?”

Ariadne shrugs, closing the laptop and setting it to the side. 

“Yeah sure, it’s some South African oil company right?”

“Right, like Ferrari is just some company that makes cars. COBOL Engineering is one of the biggest oil conglomerates in the world, and one of the most profitable. They’ve got a finger in every pie east of the equator in Africa.” Eames chimes in, apparently done with his phone call. “They might as well own Mombasa, where our dear old friend Yusuf sets up shop.”

He says, hooking a thumb back at where Yusuf is standing by the door, hands in pockets. He clears his throat awkwardly. 

“There’s fewer… regulations there.” He explains, almost sheepish. “I can work undisturbed. And if you don’t bother them COBOL doesn’t bother you.”

“Alright, sure, but what would they want with Arthur?”

Ariadne asks, looking back to Dom. Eames snorts, shaking his head. 

“Well, our dynamic duo managed to piss them off pretty bad.”

Dom sighs, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. He can feel a headache coming on. 

“Right before the Fischer thing, Arthur and I picked up a job from them. We were supposed to extract plans for an energy expansion program from Proclus Global’s chief engineer.”

Ariadne’s eyes widen a little as the puzzle pieces slot into place. 

“Wait, Proclus Global, isn’t that-”

“Saito’s company? Yes, it is.” Dom finishes for her. “We tried to extract the plans from Saito after his engineer didn’t have the details, which obviously didn’t work out. Turns out the whole thing was a set up, an audition of sorts even though we didn’t know it. We never delivered the info to COBOL, and they don’t take failure well. When we didn’t show, they put a price on my head.”

Ariadne sits with that for a second, and he can nearly see the gears turning in her head before she frowns. 

“So if the price was on your head, why didn’t they take you too?”

Dom doesn’t answer, and he feels guilt rise in his throat like bile. In the end Eames steps in for him. 

“Cobb has family, kids, if he went missing it would cause a splash, not to mention the international politics there. The states aren’t their stomping grounds. Arthur though… he was just the easier target. They need someone to make an example of, after all.” 

His voice is grim and flat, and Dom has to close his eyes for a second. 

“God, what do you think they’re doing to him?”

Ariadne asks quietly, sounding almost afraid of the answer. Eames and Yusuf exchange a glance, neither wanting to be the one to say it. Dom pushes himself off the bed a little too abruptly, sending Ariadne’s laptop sliding towards the edge. She reaches out and grabs it before it falls, looking up at him with round shocked eyes. 

“Nothing good,” he snaps, even though it’s not fair to be angry. “Which is why we need to find him. And sooner rather then later. I’m going to call some people just…keep working.” 

With that he strides out of the hotel room, letting the door slam decisively shut behind him. They’ll find Arthur. They have to find Arthur. Dom just hopes it’s not too late. 


	7. chapter six

It’s alright, Arthur thinks, when they hurt him. It’s alright because it’s not real. It’s just a dream. He clings to that, like a mantra. Repeats it over and over and over in his head. _It’s just a dream just a dream just a dream_. This pain is only in the dream, and then he’ll wake up, and it won’t matter anymore. A fading memory, marked by nothing. It works, to an extent. Like Mal had said years ago, pain is the mind, and it sure as hell feels real in the moment. Still, no matter how much they hurt him he doesn’t tell them anything, keeps his mouth shut. Because Arthur is a lot of things, but he’s not a traitor, and they won’t be the ones to make him into one. 

It reminds him of the dream-share program he’d been recruited for from the Marines. They’d wanted to test the viability of using the dream space for enhanced interrogation, first on projections and then eventually on each other. Arthur had looked at dreams and seen creation, seen endless possibility. The military had looked at it and seen efficiency and plausible deniability. It’s why he left, because he was tired of pain and causing it. Why he stole a prototype PASIV and ran for the hills, ran until he found Mal and Dom and thought maybe, just maybe, he didn’t have to run anymore. That maybe he had found where he was running too. But then Mal-then Mal did what she did and the ground fell out from underneath them and Arthur did what he did best. He ran. 

In some of his darker moments he’s angry. Angry at himself, angry at Koppel, angry at COBOL and the Swedish asshole in an expensive suit who’s made it his goal to make Arthur’s life hell. Mostly he’s angry with Cobb, though. _Fuck him_ , he thinks. Fuck him for taking the job from Saito on less then a promise and fuck him for getting them wrapped up with COBOL in the first place and _fuck_ him for killing Mal. For being so goddamn obsessively curious he led his own wife off the ledge. And Arthur had loved her, so much, too much. 

But, in the end, Arthur knows it’s not Cobb’s fault, not really. Because Arthur is in charge of his own choices, and there’s never been anybody who’s been able to make him do things he didn’t want to do. Maybe Cobb led him down the garden path but he reached out and took his hand in the first place. He didn’t force Mal into it either, it would be a disservice to pretend Mal was anything but her own person, in the end. Arthur knows that, too. It doesn’t make him less angry. 

Days pass, blending together. Sometimes Arthur sleeps, but he’s never sure if it’s real or not. Arthur dies, and then he wakes up. The worst part, Arthur decides, isn’t when they hurt him. Pain is just pain after all, and it can be managed appropriately. No, the worst part is the uncertainty. Arthur has built his life on layers and layers of control, of always knowing exactly where he stands, and now he has none. Every time he dies he’s never sure if it’s going to be the one that sticks, if he’s going to wake up again. 

Sometimes, they lock him in his beige room with nothing but a gun and a single bullet. It’s mocking, a challenge, and Arthur thinks about it, god does he think about it. But he never takes the bait. And that feels like the biggest defeat of all. 

So it continues on and on and on, without end. This time they’d broken all the fingers in his right hand. Arthur actually kind of hopes this is just a dream, because it hurts like a bitch. 

He hears the lock on his cell click open, and straightens instinctively, frowning as he prepares himself. The door swings slowly, quietly, open, and Arthur feels his eyes widen at the familiar face the peaks in.

“Cobb?” He hisses in a low whisper, shock and fear and hope all warring for dominance in his tone. “Cobb, what the hell are you doing?”

Cobb slips the rest of the way into the room, gently closing the door behind him.

“The hell does it look like? Getting you out of here.”

He whispers back, pulling a lock pick out of his back pocket and fiddling with the cuffs around Arthur’s wrists. Arthur shakes his head, foggy brain still trying to catch up. 

“Wait, no. No, you shouldn’t be here, the kids. What about the kids? They want you Dom, more then me.”

Cobb ignores him, pulling the cuffs off his wrists, brows furrowing at the sight of his mangled fingers. 

“Kids are fine, with their grandparents.” 

He says, creeping back to the door and cracking it open, peering outside carefully. Arthur just sits there, a little in shock. Cobb looks back to him, brows furrowing even further, hurrying back to him. He puts his hands on Arthur’s shoulders, half shaking him, one hand slapping him lightly on the cheek to keep his attention. 

“Arthur, Arthur, look at me. We need to go, now. We don’t have much time before they notice something’s up. Look, I’m already here, and I’m not leaving you so either we get out together or we sit here until they catch us both. Which do you want.” 

That finally snaps Arthur out of his trance and he nods, swiping unsteadily at his face with his uninjured hand. 

“Yeah. Yeah okay, let’s go.” 

He says, pushing himself to his feet and letting Cobb lead him out the door. Arthur follows him down a long hallway, stumbling along behind him. Cobb has a gun now, Arthur can’t remember if he had a gun before in the room. Something in his brain tells him that’s important, but he can’t figure out why. 

Luckily it seems to be late, and no one confronts them as they slink along the walls, keeping to the shadows. There’s a few close calls, but somehow they manage to avoid running into any patrols.

“Listen,” Cobb says, turning to him when they get closer to the elevator banks. “The rest of the team’s outside waiting in a van, we’ll get you out of here-”

“The rest of the team came for me?”

Arthur asks, a little surprised, a little touched, a little confused, all at once. Cobb looks back at him, and smiles. 

“Yeah, of course they did. We weren’t gonna leave you behind.”

Arthur nods, managing a small smile back. 

“You know, I’m surprised Eam-”

He cuts himself off before he can finish though, as the thing that had bothered him earlier pops back to the front of his mind. Cobb didn’t have a gun in the room with him, but now he does. He pauses, frowning. 

“What are their names, Cobb?”

Cobb looks over his shoulder, brow furrowing in confusion. 

“What are you talking about, what are whose names?”

“The rest of the team, who’s waiting outside. What are their names.” 

Cobb finally stops, glancing around and inching back towards Arthur, confusion starting to be replaced by irritation.

“Come on, we don’t have time for this, Arthur, we’ll see them in a second. They’re going to notice you’re gone any time now.”

Arthur just shakes his head and stays put. 

“Tell me their names, otherwise I’m not going anywhere with you.” 

For a second Cobb looks like he’s going to protest further, but then the creases in his brow smooth away and he smiles eerily, straightening. 

“So, I guess there’s no use in pretending anymore.” He says, shedding Cobb’s voice like a snake sheds it’s skin, Scandinavian accent bleeding through like spilled ink. “May I ask what gave me away?”

It’s unnerving, he’s still wearing Cobb’s face, in his body, but he’s nothing like Cobb. It sends a shiver down Arthur’s spine. 

“You pulled the gun out of nowhere, didn’t have it in the room, had it in the hallway.”

Arthur says numbly, not sure why he’s telling him this. He feels shattered, exhausted, his desperate hope crumbling to pieces to in his hands. He’d really thought it was Dom. Had wanted to believe it so badly he’d let himself be blinded to the obvious trick. It’s a con he and Dom have pulled together many times before, one of the most basic in the book. Impersonate someone the mark trusts and let their subconscious take care of the blanks you’re trying to fill. He’d gotten so close to falling for it too, so close to going outside to that van and putting Ariadne and Eames and Yusuf in it for this asshole to see. He almost gave them all up on a blind stupid hope. He closes his eyes, sagging back against the wall behind him as his legs fail. 

He feels sick and weary and defeated. Feels desperate. He’s just not sure how long he can keep doing this, the uncertainty and the constant fear and the knowledge that he can’t trust anything anymore, not even himself. Not even his best friend. The Scandinavian squats down in front of him, head cocking slightly to the side. 

“Almost got you this time.” He remarks, pale blue eyes glinting cruelly in the dim light like sea ice. “You’re slipping Arthur.” 

“Fuck you.”

Arthur says, but there’s not heat to it. The man sighs, shaking his head, then shoots Arthur in the shoulder. He screams, he can’t help it, to tired to pretend it doesn’t hurt. His head bangs back against the wall behind him as he pants raggedly.

“You’re making my job so much harder then it needs to be, Arthur.” Not-Cobb says, scratching at his eyebrow. “And harder for you. Just give me for the information I want and we can finally stop playing all these games.”

“I’m not giving you anything. Ever.”

Arthur hisses through his teeth, trying to ignore the feeling of blood sliding down his arm, warm and sticky and cloying. He sighs, shaking his head. 

“Oh Arthur, that’s what they all say.” 

The next bullet is in Arthur’s chest, center mass, and it takes him a few seconds to bleed out. The last thing he sees before it all fades to black is Dom’s face smiling cruelly down at him. 


	8. chapter seven

“Cobb, think I’ve got something.” 

Eames calls from where he’s been holed up in the bathroom, a touch of excitement in his voice as he ends the phone call he’s been on for the last 45 minutes. Dom blinks himself awake, nearly knocking over a stale cooling cup of coffee near his elbow as he pushes himself upright. It’s been nearly a week now of dead ends and leads that go nowhere. Almost a week of late nights and tension and too many bodies in too small a space, too much pent up frustration trapped in an airless hotel suite. A week of only hearing his kid’s voices over the phone.

“The name Jüri Koppel mean anything to you? Is that an alias Arthur used?”

Eames continues, wandering out into the living area and grabbing a previously abandoned mug of something and taking a sip, wincing a little at the contents. Dom tries to force his tired mind to think, turning the name over in his head. Jüri Koppel, it rings a bell somewhere in the depths of his memory, and his brow furrows as he tries to recall where he’s heard it before. 

“Yeah, yeah.” He says after a moment. “Koppel. He’s an-an Estonian architect, I think Arthur worked a few jobs with him back in the day.” 

“Well,” Eames says, putting the mug back down with distaste. “The room they found the body in was paid for by a credit card in his name.” 

Dom frowns. As far as he knows the last job Arthur and Koppel worked together was at least five or six years ago, and Arthur’s never mentioned if they’ve been in contact since.

“Maybe…maybe that’s why Arthur was in Kiev,” Ariadne says from across the room from where she’s curled up in the one armchair, laptop balanced precariously across her knees. “To visit this Koppel guy?”

Dom considers it, it would make sense, but there still feels like there’s a piece missing. 

“But why’s Koppel in Ukraine in the first place? As far as I know his stomping ground wasn’t Eastern Europe. And how’d COBOL know where to grab him?” He shakes his head and pushes himself to his feet, starting to pace. “There’s something we’re missing here, something we’re not seeing.”

No one says anything, because what is there to say? Dom’s right, but they can’t see what they don’t know. 

After that they double down, spurred on by the faint shred of hope. They try everything; Eames reaches out to every shady underworld contact he can think of, Yusuf asks around and calls in favors, Dom and Ariadne check Arthur’s bank account for any signs of something odd. But there’s nothing, one day Arthur was there and the next day he wasn’t and none of them can figure out where the hell he went. It’s infuriating, and Dom can feel his patience start to wear thin as every lead they chase ends up in a dead end. Eventually Yusuf has to leave, with the lines of his apology carved into his face. Back to his family waiting for him in Mombasa, a life he can’t put eternally on hold. Dom thinks about daily phone calls and how the sound of his children’s voices through telephone lines is almost more familiar then not.   
  
“Guys, guys, hold up, I think I might have found something.”

Ariadne calls, voice more hopeful then Dom’s felt in a while. It’s nearly four in the afternoon now, and they’ve all been up since five. She gestures Dom over, pointing at something on her computer screen.

“Look at this, I traced the credit card back to a bank account, and managed to get a hold of a cellphone number that was linked to it. Look at these call records,” she points to a list of incoming and outgoing calls and numbers she has pulled up, “Two days before Arthur disappears, he gets a call from a blocked number. That night he buys a plane ticket to Kiev, and books the hotel room. After that, he only makes two more outgoing calls. The first is to this number,” She points to a line highlighted in yellow, “And the second is to the blocked number again, the morning Arthur flies into Kiev.” 

“Wait, I recognize that first number. That’s one of Arthur’s burners.” 

Dom says. Eames raises an eyebrow, sitting up a little taller in his chair. 

“Well, I don’t know about you lot, but this is starting to smell like a set up to me.”

He quips dryly. 

“So lets assume the blocked number is COBOL, they call Koppel, threaten him into baiting Arthur into the open. He flies to Kiev the next day, calls Arthur, and somehow gets him to meet with him at this hotel so COBOL can grab him. Then they burn the hotel down and pay off the owner to make it look like Arthur died.” 

Dom says slowly, working through it in his head. 

“And I’d be willing to put good money that the body in the room was our friend Jüri.” 

Eames murmurs, a little darkly. And just like that they’ve solved the mystery, pieces falling neatly into place. And just like that, they’re nowhere again. They know why Arthur was in Kiev, know exactly how COBOL set him up, how they tricked him, and it means nothing. Arthur could be anywhere. Suddenly it all threatens to overwhelm Dom, how little they have, rising in his throat like bile. Abruptly he stands, running a hand through unkempt hair, pushing it away from his face. 

“I’m going to get some fresh air.” He says shortly, trying to keep the desperation out of his tone. “I’ll be back in a couple minutes.”

Then he walks out the hotel room without waiting for a response. The hallway isn’t much better then the room, air still stale and heavy and slightly recycled, smelling vaguely of cologne and sweat. Taking a deep gulping breath he half-staggers down the hall until he reaches the emergency exit door, pushing it open and falling gratefully out onto the fire escape. The fall air is cold and biting, stinging at the inside of his nose, making his eyes water a little. He focuses on the small pain of it, leans back against the rough brick of the building and closes his eyes and takes another deep breath, trying to ground himself. A few seconds later he hears the door creak open again, old metal straining and scraping against itself like a death rattle. Looking over he sees Ariadne, holding her sweater closer to herself against the chilly air. She comes to stand by him, leaning back against the wall close enough that their shoulders brush. He accepts the gentle offer of comfort, leans into the warmth of her body. 

“Cobb,” says Ariadne, after a moment. “This is-this is crazy. We don’t have the resources to find him, let alone break him out of wherever they’re holding him. I’m a grad student, not a hacker, okay. We need to talk to someone who does.”

Her tone is pointed. Dom sighs, looking out across the moody grey sky, dry leaves skittering by in the breeze. She’s right. They can’t do this on their own. 

“I know.” he concedes, finally. “I know.”

They stand there for a few minutes, until the cold becomes too biting; the tips of Dom’s fingers turning red even in his pockets. 

Eames glances up from his computer when the door opens again, glancing between the two of them. 

“Have a nice chat you two? Care to share with the rest of the class?”

He says, dry as bone. Dom doesn’t deign to respond to that jab, just says.

“Eames, you and Ariadne go to Kiev, see if you can track anybody down who worked at the hotel that day who might have seen where they went. I’m heading to Tokyo.”

It’s a long flight, but Dom can’t make himself sleep. He managed to get a window seat, and spends most of the eleven-hour flight with the window shade up, watching clouds speed by underneath the planes wings like an ocean. 

He checks his phone when the plane touches down, and finds a text from Ariadne, telling him to call when he has service. He grabs a coffee from a Starbucks in the terminal and punches in her number. Her voice is grainy over the line, sounding as distant as she is. 

“How was your flight?” she asks, like it matters. “Did you manage to get any sleep?”

“It was fine.” Dom replies sharply, and then regrets it. She’s just worried, he knows, and she doesn’t deserve that from him. He tries again, softening his tone a little. “It’s fine. Did you and Eames find something?”

“Yeah, we managed to track down footage from a security camera from the hotel the day Arthur went missing. I think we might have gotten the guy who took him on camera, I’m sending you a picture now,” 

A second later his phone dings and he pulls it down from his ear, and opens his text messages to see a grainy still from a video. It shows a short balding man flanked by two burly guards in suits walking through a hotel lobby, he’s looking over his shoulder at something, face twisted just enough that the camera caught his profile. He doesn’t recognize the face. 

“Okay, good work.” He says, putting the phone back to his ear. “Keep digging, call me if anything else crops up.” 

“Of course. And Cobb, just… be careful, alright?” 

Cobb pauses, and feels the weight of the last two weeks suddenly settle on his shoulders all at once. 

“I will.”

He says quietly, and ends the call. 

After he hangs up he throws the coffee in the trash, walks into the bathroom and splashes cool water onto his face. Trying in vain to scrub up away eleven hours on an airplane. Shutting off the faucet he reaches out to grab a few paper towels, blotting the water off his face. He looks tired, dark bags hanging heavily beneath his eyes and stress lines creased into his forehead. If Arthur were here he would tell him he looks like crap, so evenly it wouldn’t even sound like an insult. If Arthur were here he’d probably have a set of toiletries and tell Dom to brush his teeth and get his shit together and stop wallowing. But Arthur isn’t here, and isn’t that just the bitter irony of it all. The one person he’d go to for help is the one he’s trying to find. 

It’s already late by the time he gets through customs, and so Dom has his cab driver take him to the nearest hotel. It’s fine, cheap and clean and comfortingly impersonal, like the many hotels Dom had stayed in while he was on the run. He takes a quick shower, then collapses into bed. Sleep doesn’t come however. Mostly he lies there and thinks about how much he misses his kids, his comfortable house, even his office job. He’s not like Arthur, he never wanted this kind of life, had always loved the comfortable domesticity of everything he’d built with Mal. Mac and cheese dinners and trips to Disneyland and kids cartoons humming gently in the background.

And he could just walk away from it all, he knows. Could buy a plane ticket back to Paris right now and go home to Phillipa and James, and no one would fault him for it. But he also knows he won’t. Because Arthur is his friend and he doesn’t deserve to die like this, and because it’s Dom’s fault it happened. That’s what it all circles back too at the end of the day. Guilt. 

Arthur had looked at the job with COBOL and said they should walk away from it, just like he said they should’ve walked away from Saito on that rooftop in Nagoya years ago. And Dom had looked at that job and seen maybe, just maybe, a way home; and Arthur had followed him into it like he followed Dom everywhere else. COBOL wanted Dom, and they took Arthur, and Dom couldn’t go home to his safe comfortable life and live with that. He already has Mal’s blood on his hands, he doesn’t need Arthur’s too. 

When he finally drifts off into a few hours of restless sleep, he doesn’t dream. 

The next morning he wakes early, still on Paris time. He shaves, puts on the one suit he packed in his suitcase when he left the states. It’s the suit he wore to Arthur’s funeral, and the irony isn’t lost on him as he carefully buttons the cuffs and shrugs on the jacket. He eats a quick breakfast in the hotel café, then catches a cab into downtown Tokyo to the Proclus Global offices. 

The receptionist eyes him uncertainly when he walks up to the front desk, lips pinched. 

“How may I help you?”

She asks, in English with a slight refined accent. 

“Yeah, I need to talk to your boss.”

He replies, pointing up. She gives him a pointed look, eyeing his rumpled suit. 

“Do you have an appointment? Mr. Saito is very busy-”

“No, I don’t have an appointment. Look, just tell him it’s Dom Cobb, that it’s important. Trust me, you don’t want me to have to make a fuss about this.”

Her eyes flick over his shoulder to where two security guards stand near the front door, but she reaches out slowly to pick up her phone, lifting it to her ear and saying something in rapid-fire Japanese. After a few seconds of waiting her eyes go wide, carefully sculpted eyebrows crawling up her forehead. She hangs up, turning back to Dom and gesturing a security guard over.

“I apologize for my rudeness, Mr. Saito will see you right away.” 

The elevator is glass, facing out across the cityscape of Tokyo. Dom watches buildings flash by as it rises floor by floor, all glistening steel and glass. It reminds him of Arthur’s mind, viciously modern yet ancient all at the same time. 

When they reach the top floor, Dom’s escort stays in the elevator, and he steps out into a elegant waiting room, all dark wood and dim warm lighting. It looks like the inside of Saito’s head, and Dom should know. He’s been. 

Saito’s personal receptionist is standing in front of her desk waiting for him, hands primly clasped behind her back. When he approaches she bows, 

“Welcome Mr. Cobb. He’s waiting for you inside. May I bring you any refreshments?”

She says, stepping forward to open the door to the office for him. He shakes his head,

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.”

She inclines her head, and ushers him inside before closing the door behind him. Saito is sitting behind a massive oak desk, papers and files scattered around his surface, in a suit Dom is sure costs more then his car. He gives Dom something that might almost be a smile when he steps inside, shutting the lid of his computer and gesturing to the leather chair in front of the desk. 

“It has been quite some time Mr. Cobb. I hope you do not take offense at this, but I was hoping that our paths would not cross again.”

Saito says, almost wryly. Dom manages a tight smile, taking the offered seat. 

“None taken. I was of the same mind.”

Saito nods, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers in front of him.

“So, what brings you all the way to Tokyo? I’m assuming this is not a pleasure trip.”

“No, it’s…unfinished business.” 

Saito’s eyebrow quirks and Dom pauses, trying to decide the right way to say this. In the end he takes the direct approach, Saito’s never been one for beating around the bush. 

“Two weeks ago someone took Arthur. As you know, before you hired my team Arthur and I were contracted by COBOL Engineering to extract an energy expansion plan from your chief engineer, and then you. We didn’t give them the information they wanted, for obvious reasons.”

“You think they took your friend.”

Saito finishes for him. Dom nods, and Saito sighs, one hand reaching up idly to massage at his chest. Perhaps rubbing away the pain of a wound that never existed, a phantom memory. It’s funny, the scars the dream leaves on them all, even though it’s all in their heads. Saito drops his hand, like he’s realized what he’s doing. 

“And you need my help to find him.”

He finishes instead, almost resigned. Dom nods, leaning forward a little, putting a hand on the edge of Saito’s desk. 

“Look, we’ve tracked down where and when he disappeared but we-we just don’t have the resources to go any further. Resources that you have.”

He says intently, tapping a finger on the smooth glossy surface of the desk for emphasis. For a long time Saito doesn’t say anything, dark eyes watching Dom intently, face unreadable. Eventually he unlaces his fingers, leaning forward to meet Dom in the middle. 

“You came to limbo to find me, Mr. Cobb, you saved my life.” Saito says, deadly serious. “I owe you a debt. Whatever you need to find him, you have only to ask.” 

Dom nods, feels something like relief bloom in his chest. Bending down he opens his briefcase, pulls out the printout of the photo Ariadne sent him last night and slides it across the desk to Saito. 

“First, I need to know who this is.” 


	9. chapter nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update was so late! Hope everyone enjoys :)

After his meeting with Saito Dom heads back to his hotel, but stops the cab before he gets there, hops out on the curb in front of a bar. It’s small and dim and very empty. He takes a seat at the bar and orders whatever beer is first on menu. The bartender sets it in front of him, glass cool with condensation. Dom doesn’t move for a long while, just watches bubbles float through the amber liquid till they fizzle and pop on the surface. He feels like a bubble that hasn’t popped yet, like he can barely breath through the pressure of it. He’d forgotten that feeling, like there’s always something sitting on your chest. When he finally takes a sip he can barely taste the beer, just feels the carbonation bright and sharp against the roof of his mouth. 

That night he tries to sleep but once again finds it won’t come, and ends up pacing endlessly across the ragged carpet of his hotel room. Back and forth and back and forth till he’s pretty sure he’s worn a path into the floor. Luckily for Dom Saito is nothing but efficient and less then 24 hours from when Arthur was sitting in his plush expensive penthouse office his cellphone rings. 

“Mr. Cobb,” Saito intones when he answers. “I have the information you requested. My head of security is sending it to you now. I hope this helps you find what you are looking for.” 

“Yeah.” Dom says. “Yeah, me too.”

And he does, because this was the last ditch final chance play. If this doesn’t pan out there’s nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to. 

After he ends the call he pulls up his email on his laptop, refreshing the inbox till the email comes through. As he opens the attachment and scrolls through the file his eyes widen, heart jumping into his throat. 

“Holy shit.”

Dom breathes, one hand already reaching for his phone. Eames answers after a few rings, sounding groggy. Vaguely Dom remembers it’s the middle of the night in Kiev. 

“Jesus Cobb,” Eames mutters grumpily, “this better be good.”

“He’s still in Kiev. Arthur's still in Kiev.” Dom says, voice catching in his throat. “I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

In the end it’s almost comically easy to find Arthur, once they have all the pieces. All it takes is a quick peak at records for recent real estate transactions in Kiev to find an abandoned warehouse that had been purchased by a COBOL shell company on the outskirts of the city a month ago. Another quick trip to the neighborhood in a rented car confirms a suspicious amount of activity for a supposedly empty building. 

“I’m going in for him tomorrow.” 

Dom says, while they watch a man with the distinctive bulge of a gun pressing out the waistband of his pants smoke a cigarette outside the front door. Ariadne gives him a look. 

“You mean we’re going after him tomorrow, right?”

Her voice is pointed, and Dom sighs. 

“No I mean I, as in me. Alone.” 

She shakes her head immediately, hair starting to fall loose from it’s messy bun. 

“There’s no way you’re going in there by yourself, are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“She has a point Cobb, far be it for me to get in the way of your suicide mission but I’ve spent rather a lot of time on this little project now and I have a rather vested interest in actually getting our man back in one piece as opposed to lots of little bits.”

Eames adds, bone-dry.

“Look,” Dom says, trying to sound more confident then he feels. “One person has a better chance of getting in undetected then three of us.”

Ariadne looks at him, eyes narrowing in a familiar expression. And it’s like being back in that empty backroom alone with her, Mal’s screams still echoing in both their ears. Like he’s being stuck through with a pin, like all his secrets are naked for her to see. 

“You better not be doing this to protect me. I don’t need protecting anymore, Cobb. I’m a part of whatever this is.” 

Her voice is sharp enough to cut yourself on, and he hears the unspoken words. I’m a part of this because you made me a part of it, three years ago in a busy university hallway in Paris. He knows that. He knows she doesn’t regret it either though, that the real world didn’t offer enough for her; not now that’s she’s seen what lies beyond it. Still, just because she doesn’t regret it doesn’t mean it absolves him of the guilt of doing it in the first place. He looks at her steadily. 

“I know. I’m still doing it alone.”

He says, and this time she doesn’t fight it.

They make their move the next day, in the early afternoon. Dom figures they won’t expect someone to try something in broad daylight, and that they won’t want to kick up a public fuss. Hopes it works to their advantage. Eames and Ariadne stay behind in the van Eames hotwired, parked around the corner from the warehouse. 

“Here,” Eames says, as Dom slips out of the car. “Think you might need this.” 

He’s holding out a gun, and Dom hesitates before he takes it. The weight is familiar in his hand, familiar like a warning, familiar like the memory of a life he doesn’t live anymore. He swallows, fingers closing around the cool metal, and looks to Eames. 

“Thanks.” 

Eames just nods, before sliding the side door shut. Dom takes a deep breath, tucking the gun into the waistband of his pants and pulling his jacket down over it. Then he turns and heads for the warehouse. 

* * *

Arthur wakes up to the sound of a door being slammed open. He blinks himself into consciousness in an instant, just in time to be pulled roughly to his feet. Before he can quite process what’s happening he’s being dragged out the door, down a hallway. It’s not the beige room, he notices. More industrial, grimier. He doesn’t think he’s been here before, and unease settles in his stomach. They pull him through another door, into a large room empty except for a metal chair sitting in the middle of it, and the Scandinavian. They force him to sit with a quick punch to the gut; un-cuffing one of his hands long enough to thread the chain through the bars of the back of the chair. It’s dark here, the bare flickering bulb hanging from the ceiling barely illuminating the space. 

This feels different then other times, Arthur thinks. More urgent. The Swede pulls out a gun, but doesn’t point it at Arthur yet, holding it loosely in his hand like a threat. He looks pissed off, which is more emotion then Arthur’s seen from him the whole time they’ve had him. 

“You’re time is up, Arthur. My employers are tired of waiting, and so am I. Give me fucking inception, give me _names_.”

Arthur shakes his head, staring the other man down evenly. If they’re hoping to rattle him with all of this, he’s not going to let them think they’ve succeeded. With no hesitation the man raises the gun and shoots Arthur in the knee. 

The pain is blinding, all-consuming, and he doubles over in the chair, huffing out a scream from between his teeth. The last time he’d been kneecapped Cobb had been there, and he’d died to quickly to really register much of what happened. This time though, there’s no one here willing to put him out of his misery. After a few seconds the bright sharp agony of the initial shock is fades to be replaced by a hollow burning sensation in his knee, his thigh. His foot feels cold, not numb exactly, but cool and clammy. Like he’d put a leather shoe on without a sock.

“Next one goes in between your eyes, unless you tell me what I want to know.” 

The Swede says, and it sounds like his voice is coming from very far away, like Arthur’s underwater. Panting a little he heaves himself upright, tries to ignore the feeling of warm wet liquid pooling in the seat beneath him, soaking into his pants, running down his leg. 

“I-I’m not…giving you…anything.” Arthur grinds out. “Anyways, why. Why should I care? Kill me…and I’ll just wake up.” 

The man smiles, lifting his gun up to aim it directly at Arthur’s head. 

“Ah, not this time unfortunately. You see, this isn’t a dream Arthur. This is very very real.”

The puzzles all slide into place, painting a terrible picture. For the first time in a long time, Arthur believes it. Really truly believes it. And it doesn’t change anything, not really. He doesn’t bother with a response, just keeps his mouth shut. The man’s face darkens. 

“Very well.” He snaps, voice like a lash across Arthur’s skin. “Have it your way.” 

Arthur closes his eyes, feels the cool barrel of the gun press to his forehead. This is it, he realizes with a sort of numb detached horror. This is it. He held out for as long as he could, and now it’s over. He should feel more at the thought, fear or anger or grief, but mostly he feels nothing. Mostly he just feels tired. It’s almost a sort of relief, to think that this is the end. No more pain, no more fear, no more uncertainty. No more running, either. Maybe this was always how this was going to end, maybe there was never any escaping it. These violent delights have violent ends and all that. 

And Arthur doesn’t believe in a heaven or a hell, doesn’t believe in any sort of afterlife really. He doesn’t think his soul is going to anyplace better when he kicks the bucket. After death there will be just be nothingness, a different sort of limbo. Just, peace, maybe. He thinks he might be alright with that. Thinks he might be ready for a little bit of peace. 

Closing his eyes he takes a deep breath and waits for the final pull of the trigger. 


	10. chapter nine

It’s easier then Dom expected to get in the building. He goes around back, and finds a padlocked door next to the dumpsters. The locks easy to crack, with years of experience breaking into places tucked under his belt. Pushing the heavy metal door open he slips into the dim warehouse, blinking a few times as his eyes adjust to the darkness. He creeps agonizingly slowly down the empty hallways, hyper aware of the cold metal of the gun pressed into the small of his back, the scrape of the leather soles of his shoes against the concrete ground. The cavernous building is cool and quiet, and mostly empty apparently. Dom passes by room after empty room as he moves deeper into the building. He’s just starting to doubt if Arthur is even still here or if they somehow realized their cover had been blown and moved him when something makes him pause in front of a room. Creeping closer he presses his ear close to the metal, trying to listen over the sound of his own heartbeat thrumming in his ears. 

There’s no voices but he can hear the gentle hum of machinery and the sound of footsteps from through the door. Taking a deep breath he reaches behind him and pulls the gun out of his waistband, making sure the safety is off. With a last prayer to whoevers listening he steadies his grip and pushes the door sharply inwards with his shoulder, bringing the gun up to bear as he forces his way into the room. A man in jeans and a t-shirt startles, stumbling back from where he was bent over a man on a cot as Dom appears, hands flying up as soon as he sees the gun. Dom ignores him, eyes roving across the room till he finds what he’s looking for. 

Arthur’s lying in a cot, hands cuffed together, and Dom traces the familiar IV from his wrist to the PASIV sitting on a table next to the bed. His eyes are closed, gaze flickering franticly back and forth underneath his lids. He looks okay, physically at least. A little skinny, a little pale. But all in one piece. It’s more then Dom dared to hope for. 

There’s three more cots in the room. Two of them contain men Dom doesn’t recognize. The third he does, from staring at his face for hours in a blurry CCTV printout. 

“Wake him up.”

Dom barks at the scared looking lab tech.

“There-there’s still two minutes on the timer.”

He says, tremulously, hands still in the air. Dom curses. Keeping his gun pointed at the tech he kneels beside Arthur’s cot, reaches out and slaps lightly at his cheek. 

“Come on, Arthur. Wake up.” There’s no response though, Arthur doesn’t even flinch, and he taps harder, shaking his shoulder a little. “Goddammit Arthur wake _up_.” 

There’s still no response and he turns back to the lab tech.

“What the hell did you dose him with?”

The tech swallows. 

“It’s uh, it’s a special compound. Pretty strong. They have him two layers down, I think. The sedation needs to hold-”

Dom winces, finishing the mans sentence for him. 

“To keep the dream stable. Yeah, yeah I know. Okay, where are the keys?”

“The-the keys?”

The man asks.

“The keys to his handcuffs, where the fuck are the keys?”

The techs eyes flick uncertainly around, and Dom shakes the gun a little to motivate him. It seems to help, jumping to his feet he half-runs to the man from Kiev’s still form, rifling gingerly through his pockets till he pulls out a key ring with two keys on it. He throws it to Dom, who catches them deftly. It takes a little maneuvering but he manages to get the cuffs unlocked with one hand. He pockets the key ring, throws the cuff at the tech. 

“Okay, here’s what you’re going to do. You’re gonna sit down again and you’re gonna cuff yourself to the chair, alright?” the man nods, obeying immediately. “Good. Now what’s the other key on that ring for?”

“It’s the key to this room. Locks from the outside. Please-please don’t kill me.”

He replies, voice trembling a little. Dom resists the urge to roll his eyes. 

“I’m not going to kill you. Unlike the people you work for I actually have a moral compass.”  
  
Pocketing the keys and tucking the gun in the back of his jeans Dom crouches again,

“Sorry buddy,”

He whispers to Arthur’s unconscious form before shoving him over the side of the cot. He comes awake in a flail of limbs, a gasp dying in his throat, eyes wild. Dom hops over the cot to his side, shoving the light bedframe aside as he kneels beside him.

“Hey,” He says, soothingly, “Hey, just take a breath. It’s me okay, it’s just me. You alright?”

Arthur doesn’t reply, wide eyes staring up at him like he’s not even seeing him. Dom can see his pulse fluttering in his neck, his breath coming in sharp gasps. He reaches out to put a hand on his shoulder, but Arthur flinches away. 

“No,” he mutters, more to himself then to Dom. “No. It’s just a dream. It’s not real, just a dream.”

Dom frowns, feeling concern starting to well in his chest. He’s never seen Arthur like this, never seen him so unsure, so out of control.

“Arthur, what are you talking about? This isn’t a dream, this is real, okay, we have to get out of here before these guys wake up.” 

Arthur acts like he didn’t even hear Dom, just keeps muttering _it’s just a dream_ under his breath again and again like a prayer. The unease strengthens, coalesces into a heavy sick knot in Dom’s stomach. Keeping one hand extended towards Arthur, but not touching him, he turns his attention to the lab tech.

“What the hell is he talking about?”

He hisses. The tech shrugs nervously, eyes flicking from Dom to Arthur to the gun in Dom’s hand. 

“I-I don’t know. I’m just here to moniter the PASIV while they’re under, okay. I don’t know what they’re doing down there.”

It’s a weak excuse, because obviously the guy has to have some idea of what kind of things they might be doing. A cowards excuse, he wonders how many atrocities have happened because of someone’s _I don’t knows_. It’s not my fault, I was only following orders. Dom gives up on trying to get anything out of him, shaking his head and focusing back on Arthur. 

“Look, Arthur, I need you too look at me. Look at me. It’s me, it’s Dom, okay. I promise this is all real, and I’m going to get you out of here but we have to go _now_.”

Arthur pauses, finally looking at Dom, and there’s a frightening calm to his eyes.

“No. No, that’s what you said last time, but you weren’t real. None of this is real, I know that now. I just have to wake up.”

Shoving past Dom and knocking him to the floor Arthur shoots to his feet, booking it to the open door. Dom swears, rolling to his feet and running after him. He takes a second to slam the door shut behind him, locking it with the key he took from the tech, and when he spins Arthur is gone. There’s the faint slamming of a door from the end of the hall though, and Dom follows the echo to the door to the stairway. He looks down, and looks up, and knows in his gut which way Arthur went. 

His breath come sharp in his throat as he sprints up the stairs, heart pounding in a deafening rhythm in his ears. This feels sickeningly familiar, like a play he’s watched before. A story he knows the end too. He runs faster. 

The door at the top of the stairwell is closed, and Dom throws it open with his shoulder, stumbling out onto the rooftop. It’s cold and windy and bright, even through the wispy clouds that still hang in the afternoon sky. He spins, desperately searching for Arthur, and finds him on the far side of the roof, standing dangerously close to the edge. He pauses, feeling his blood freeze in his veins, sees an open hotel window, gauzy curtains still twisting in the breeze. 

“Hey, Arthur,” 

He says, putting his hands out like he’s trying to soothe a wounded animal and taking a step forward. As he does Arthur takes a step backwards, so close now to the edge a light breeze could knock him over. Dom stutters to a halt, not daring to move any farther forward, tries to keep his breathing steady and even as his heart races in his chest. 

“Just stay away from me, stay there.”

Arthur says, voice frailer then Dom’s ever heard it before. From this distance Arthur’s brown eyes look black, pupils blown so wide they drown out his irises.

“Arthur, Arthur listen to me. Listen to me. I know your whole world’s been turned around, and you don’t know which is up right now but I promise you, if you step off of this roof you won’t wake up, okay, you hear me? You won’t wake up, you’ll die.”

“How can I trust you,” Arthur says, desperate and searching, “how can I even know you’re real?”

He takes another fumbling step backwards as he says it, so close now that his heels are nearly hanging off the goddamn edge and Dom’s breath hitches in his throat. There’s a moment where he’s paralyzed, where all he can think is _not again_. Not again not again not again. Once was cruel enough. But then the wind blows and Arthur sways and he can’t afford to be paralyzed anymore.

“Okay, okay, just-just hold on a second.” He says, grasping at something, anything, that’ll keep Arthur on the roof. “Just look at me. You remember the first time you met Phillipa? She was only a couple days old, we had just brought her home from the hospital and you picked her up and she threw up all over your shirt and Mal and I were so apologetic but you just shrugged and said it didn’t matter. And-and I knew it was a lie because that was your favorite ridiculously over-priced button down and it was completely ruined and Mal and I hadn’t done laundry in ages because of the baby so you had to wear that god-awful tourist t-shirt Mal brought back from her last trip to Paris with the-the talking Eiffel tower on it for the rest of the day. And you just carried Phillipa around, so we could get a break and you looked at her and you smiled and I knew you loved her even though you barely knew her. And later the two of you fell asleep on the couch together and Mal took a picture and framed it and I still have it up on my fucking wall. That’s why you should trust me, Arthur, because we’re family.”

Arthur looks at him, dark eyes wide and uncertain and Dom feels his heart hammering in his chest, his ears. 

“Mal’s dead.”

He says, and Dom has to close his eyes for a second. 

“I know. I know she is. And I miss her every day. So please, Arthur, don’t make me miss you too. Please.” 

There’s a long moment and Dom’s mind races, thinking about a million different things, about the guys he left locked in a room downstairs who are most likely waking up right now and about Ariadne and Eames waiting in a van outside but mostly about how close Arthur is standing to the edge of the rooftop, how one steady gust of wind could probably knock him over. Mostly he’s thinking about how fucking tired he is of talking the people he loves off of ledges. There’s a breath, trapped somewhere in his lungs, bubbling and gasping for the surface and he thinks it might suffocate under the weight of it all. But then Arthur takes one step forward, away from the edge, then another, then stumbles to his knees on the rooftop, hands shaking in his lap. 

Dom finally breathes, lets that breath escape and he has to close his eyes for a second, nearly dizzy with relief. But a second is all he gives himself, because they’re not safe yet. Brusquely, and feeling like a bit of an asshole he pulls Arthur to his feet. 

“Come on,” He says, as gentle as he’s able, “Come on, we gotta go right now. Can you walk?”

Arthur nods numbly, barely looking at him. Up close he’s pale and clammy, sweat beading along his hairline and his upper lip. The ashy pallor only making the yellow-green bruising along the side of his face stand out more. His skin where Dom is touching him is cool. He looks terrible and he’s probably going into shock, but there will be time to take care of it later.

“Alright, good, let’s go. Ariadne and Eames are waiting right outside.” 

Arthur just nods again, eyes staring blankly ahead, but he stays on his own two feet when Dom tentatively lets go of him and follows him mechanically down the stairs. They circle around the back again, avoiding the room and the people locked inside it, and somehow manage to get out of the building without running into anyone else. Arthur’s flagging by now, feet tripping awkwardly over each other, and halfway down the street Dom pauses long enough to loop Arthur’s arm over his shoulder and half-drags him the rest of the way to the car. Behind him he can hear the faint sound of shouting, and he nearly sprints the last few feet, dragging Arthur along as fast as he’s able. 

As they approach Eames pulls open the sliding door of the van, helping Arthur scramble into the van. Dom hops in after him, shouting forward to Ariadne as he slams the door closed behind him.

“Go! Go now!”

She nods, looking back at them with wide eyes as she hits the gas, the van jerking sharply away from the curb. 


End file.
